In the new age of WFH or work-from-home, the capabilities of remote working has sky rocketed and communication and collaborative tools are better than ever. The likes of Zoom, Teams, Monday share prices went through the roof during the pandemic and there’s good reason for this.
“88% of the organisations, worldwide, made it mandatory or encouraged their employees to work from home after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.”
Tech to help support you remote working has never been so advanced but there are always underlying issues when truly working remotely from anywhere. We’ve listed a few things to consider before booking those flights to Bali! We’ve also listed a few of favourite tools to assist and support you, automate systems and allow you to make the most of your WFH time.
Leverage tools to your advantage
There are so many amazing tools at your disposal these days that there is no real need to be constantly connected and be doing anything in real-time any more. We’ll touch on a few of these later, but essentially efficient planning and use of these systems ahead of time can free you up while you’re on the road. Essentially we want the ability to travel while ensuring that things still get done.
Once you get rid of real-time work then the rest is simply a matter of managing your time and finding a good Wi-Fi connection.
Have a back-up internet device
Phone hot-spotting is nothing new to the world but if you happen to be travelling without sufficient phone battery or you’re in a new country your SIM card doesn’t register correctly, its worth having a secondary device you can connect to. We’d always suggest a 4G Wi-Fi dongle with an international SIM which can be picked up anywhere fairly cheaply. We really like the TP-Link W7000 which boasts an impressive 8 hour battery and you can connect any Wi-Fi compatible device to.
Invest in good hardware
Not only will this make your day-to-day lives more comfortable and efficient, some of the best tech out there, especially laptops and MacBooks are now IP rated, meaning they have a certain level of dust and water resistance. The latest hardware will also employ solid state hard-drives which not only have faster read/write speeds, they’re also less susceptible to damage or corruption from knocks or drops ensuring your local data is safer.
Make the most of latest software
Rather than carry around bulky hard drives with your documents and content on, make the most of cloud storage. Ensure all of your important work, documents, photos either have a regular backup in a cloud service or are automatically synchronised as soon as you save them. There are so many great services out there but some of the most popular are Apple’s iCloud, DropBox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.
Spend the extra money on airport lounge access
For a reasonable annual fee you can get unlimited access to airport lounges. “What’s the big deal?” Well every time you fly, you might be grabbing coffee, snacks and meals and the airport. This adds up and if you are flying frequently, the cost of lounge access can work out to be much more economical than ad hoc purchases. You can get your coffee and food inside the lounge whilst also enjoying the more obvious benefit of being able to break out your laptop in a quiet working environment to plan and schedule posts, research content or take the time to fully relax and take a little ‘me’ time which can be so important as to not burn out when travelling extensively.
Figure Out Your Schedule Ahead of Time.
Look at your work calendar, then make sure your travel plans don’t interfere. If they do, move meetings and deadlines in advance. It’s also a great idea to check in with the people you’re traveling with to set expectations about when you’ll be available to hang out, and when you’ll need “alone time” to get work done.
Top Tools for scheduling and automation
Dubsado – helps your business stay in motion. Build relationships, schedule appointments, and create workflows to streamline your projects from start to finish.
Flodesk – By far one of the best automated email service for scheduling newsletters and creating custom email strings to help grow your email list. The templates are stunning and super easy to edit and automate for new signups.
Shopify – If you’re selling digital or physical products online, Shopify has you covered. Again so simple to use and get up and running in no time.
Acuity Scheduling – Stop emailing your availability, show it in a calendar for clients to pick and choose their most convenient time. It works 24/7 to fill your schedule so you don’t have to
Tailwind – The Tool You Need When You Don’t Have A Marketing Team! This app and allows you to plan Instagram posts one or two weeks in advance and takes the stress off of creating new content daily. You can also lay out all of your posts and pins in advance, import photos and drag and drop them into place so you can see what your overall grid looks like.
Meet Edgar – MeetEdgar makes it easy to schedule and automate your content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn!
ClickFunnels – ClickFunnels was created so that clients, who aren’t programmers and who don’t know how to code, can easily build beautiful webpages inside of a sales funnel, to grow a company online.
Kajabi – Whether it’s online courses, coaching, memberships, podcasts, newsletters, communities and more — Kajabi gives you all the tools you need to build, market, and sell it.
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Business, Entrepreneur, Productivity, Travel