Too Nice to Look At

It is a gorgeous day outside.  I really don't want to be working indoors, but I have a lot of work to do.  Every now and then I look up, and being lucky to be near a window, I see the sun shining, the trees blowing gently in the breeze, and people walking or skateboarding around.  Or it could be considered unlucky to be near a window since I see all the stuff that I can't be a part of today.  My natural tendency to procrastinate is fighting to come to the surface.  There was a time when it would easily dominate.

Today, though, I'm in control.  I planned my day out with activities that needed to get done and put them on my calendar, with alarms, for specific time blocks.  The activity that needed most of my brain power I put in the morning so I could get it over with and not stress about worrying to do it the rest of the day.  My day was completely planned out, even giving myself breaks so I could go outside for a few minutes.

Then I got out of a morning meeting, and my day had to change.  Isn't that always the case?  I had work to do resulting from that meeting and had to re-prioritize what I was going to get done today.  It wasn't easy, but I pushed some stuff off to tomorrow because there was more than enough that I had to get done TODAY.  Put it all on my calendar, now I was good to go.

And every time I look out that window and long to be out there, or get a little stressed thinking about all the work I have to do, I just take a few deep breaths, look at my calendar to see what I need to be working on right now, and plunge in.

Time Wasting in Forbes

I love when well established business magazines write articles about things near to my heart and passion!  Here is an article in Forbes I think people will find very useful:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbaldoni/2012/07/02/stop-wasting-time/

Today My Office is...

The workforce landscape today looks very different than it did 50 years ago.  Heck even 20 years ago!  There are still lots of people commuting to their office jobs in their big companies every day, or going to their retail/restaurant jobs.  However, according to IT analytics firm IDC, in 2010 75% of the workforce in America was mobile.  That's more than 55 million people, all heading to a coffee shop near you!

IMO, there are 2 factors at play here.  One is the economy, forcing companies to re-think their workforce, how much they spend on overhead, and streamlining their productivity; and two, the growing power of technology, and all the gadgets that go along with it.

When I was working in IT in the 90's, I remember reading about companies looking at share spacing (when 2 employees split an office - 1 uses it Mon-Tues, 1 uses it Wed-Fri), and hoteling (a mobile "lounge" where sales people and other mobile workers can have a space to plug into the network and do business there without the cost of separate office space).  I'm actually starting to see it happening more now, which is great news!  Yet it can present a challenge to those mobile workers from an organizational standpoint.  How to keep everything together?

This year for me will be my most mobile ever, and I'm taking full advantage of technology.  I just bought my first tablet (nope, I'm not a Mac person), but still need to get a keyboard for it (I'm a touch typer and can't abide by the virtual keyboard thing).  Along with that I finally got my own mobile hotspot device so I don't have to rely on a coffee shop wifi to work properly.  And of course I have my laptop (when I got rid of my desktop a few years ago) and smartphone.  Add to that my thumb drives and cloud software, and I'm fully mobile. 

Well, I still need a printer, so I guess I can put my printer in my car trunk and get a battery pack for it.  And I'm not sure my file cabinet (which I'll need until I can get all my files scanned) will fit in my Beetle, but if I strap that onto the roof of my car, then there will be room for my portable scanner. 

With my bluetooth device in my ear (becoming one of the Borg) I can talk to my Virtual Assistant (still not sure if it's a robot or not since I never met him) and have him send a virtual fax from my virtual server.  The only thing tangible here is myself and my client.  Welcome to 2012!

What technology are you taking advantage of to help you in our mobile world?