Tools of the Trade

This morning I left my house at 4 a.m. so I could catch a flight to Los Angeles (I am currently at 36K ft., just South of Salt Lake City). In years past, I’d have to leave my blog, iTunes account, internet banking, and social networking peers dormant while I tended to my full time career. It was either that or begin storing my personal data and footprint on my corporate laptop. Sorry. Not a fan of that.

So instead of labeling everything as “my life” and keeping it in one spot, I had to separate everything — work had a PC, my life had a PC, my wife had a PC, etc. The silos of my life couldn’t talk to each other and I was constantly wasting time. It was a major irritant that had me actually bringing two laptops on business trips. Talk about a pain.

To get around all of this worry, I literally unhooked the corporate ball and chain and stopped using their laptop for 90% of my work activities. Determined to break down the silos, I bought a laptop that has become my Swiss Army Knife. Along with the unlimited storage available online, I can access anything from just about anywhere, planned or unplanned.

Let’s take a micro-look at this by looking at the specific places I go to do it all from a single $600 laptop:

• MS Outlook, Web version
  This is my corporate email system. From any internet connection, I can access all of the emails from my customers, managers, peers, etc. I also can access corporate task lists and address books.
• Outlook/Google Calender Sync
  Two calenders are required in my life and this utility does a beautiful job of marrying the two together. Set at intervals I choose, all of my work and personal calenders are synchronized and activities labeled. Since Outlook is hooked in, everything is also sync’d on my Blackberry. It’s beautiful.
• iGoogle
  All of my PCs start on the same iGoogle page where it shows my favorite feeds and contains a display of the day’s activities in my sync’d calendar. I want my experience to be the same on all of these devices.
• Delicious
  No matter what PC I’m on, I can easily bookmark an article or idea for later reading. When I have free time later that day, I can access the bookmarks and read. Great while on the train.
• Google Docs
  I am pretty frugal so I skipped the chance to purchase MS Office. Instead, I use Googe Docs. Here I review new articles for my blog, store statistical information, maintain a family budget, collaborate with other business owners, and even design presentations to show customers. Again, this is all stored on the internet so I don’t need a “corporate laptop” to work on corporate projects.
• Air Card
  When I have client appointments, I tend to get there pretty early to ensure I am not the guy walking in 10 minutes late. So, to avoid dead time, I have an air card that I can use anywhere in the US to connect to the Internet. Your mileage may vary with this tool because most Starbucks and McDonald’s have wireless access these days, but if you find your self wasting time each week because you cannot get online, consider this investment. Note: If you’d prefer to plan ahead and only use free wifi, this wifi locator may be able to help.
• Jott
  Generally used when I am driving, this is my free administrative assistant. With Jott, I call a phone number and it records my voice message. I have it set so that if sends me that message to an email box that have setup with a filter. The filter that will indicate that the Jott message is urgent and unread. I reserve this for things that I absolutely cannot forget to do.
• Picasa and ITunes
  I grouped these together because they are both personal items with little corporate function. Picasa houses all of my personal photos, so on a long business trip, I can easily pull up pics of the family. iTunes is where I access my music. I have this sync’d up between 2 laptops and a Desktop PC so wherever I go, I have all of my podcasts, music, etc.
• Google Broswer Sync
  Too many passwords, too many bookmarks, Google Browser sync does a nice job of keeping all my PCs on the same page.

So let me give you a real work scenario that just occurred last week. During a trip, I was waiting at the airport for my flight to board. During this time I got a ton of work and personal work done: I edited 2 blog articles, sent a corporate client a contract to sign, responded to 20-30 emails, paid a developer’s PayPal invoice, and did the August family budget. In the past, that would have been impossible.