Jan
Putting Together A Portable Office That You Can Take With You Anywhere You Go In The World
Photo by Premshree Pillai
Ideally running your business on the road as a web worker requires nothing more than your laptop and the common online/software tools beloved of modern digital nomads.
Sometimes however, you really notice the fact that you don’t have your own customised little workspace to work from which houses everything from your dusty collection of energising crystals (or was that just me?!?) to your trusty collection of reference books.
The first time round we carried a whole load of unnecessary office equipment with us having succumbed to “just in case” fever. But over the past year we’ve streamlined our portable office to the bare minimum of things we’ve always needed – and if we ever need anything else, we usually just buy it.
Here are the key items that make up the ‘bare essentials’ of a portable office…
Fax machine / scanner / printer
No, I’m not suggesting you cart one of those great big all-in-one machines with you – nor individual ones either! However, you might want to consider alternative options for when you need them. Here are some of them…
- Fax machine - use an online faxing service such as eFax to send and receive faxes.
- Scanner - either consider a portable scanner such as this one or this one, use your digital camera to take snaps of important documents that you want a soft copy of or use one of these online services – Qipit and Scanr.
- Printer - unless you need to do a lot of printing, the simplest solution is to find an internet cafe and get them to print out whatever you need. It’s usually cheap, quick and easy. If not, then this printer or this one are two of the most portable machines around or you could always purchase a cheap one on location and then give it away on your departure.
USB keys & Portable External Hard Drive
We carry one each which are useful for the following:
- Transferring files between each of our laptops
- Accessing files when working from internet cafes when you can’t plug in your own laptop to connect
- Storing essential downloads of software (on both USB key and ext. hard drive)
USB cables + 1iPod (other) cable
Easy to forget but crucial for connecting to hard drives, digital cameras and iPods. A good travel tip is to always carry one with you in your hand luggage should you want to connect the iPod or digital camera/hard drive whilst in transit.
Power adapters & surge protectors
Do the research before you go and ensure you’ve got the necessary power adapters for the country you’re visiting. If you’re going to more than one country, then consider purchasing a global one and if you’re planning to work on flights, don’t forget an airplane adapter.
Don’t forget to check out the electric power requirements of the places you’re visiting here and ensure all your electric gadgets are compatible – if not, you’ll need an adapter and/or surge protector to avoid frying your stuff.
You may also want to consider taking a spare laptop charger/adapter – depending upon the make/model of your laptop, you may find it impossible to buy a new one and will be left with a functioning laptop but no way to charge it. Very frustrating, believe me!
Pencil case + contents
The humble old pencil case – haven’t had one since I was in school – is a great way to carry a selection of basic items with you as you travel, including:
- A couple of pencils and sharpener
- An eraser
- Selection of pens & biros – always have black ink biros in your hand luggage to complete immigration forms with. Can also be great gifts to give to kids in under-privileged countries.
- A ruler
- A mini stapler – useful to keep your e-tickets and printed-out boarding passes together
- A couple of highlighter pens
Roll of duct tape and/or sticky tape
Many travellers swear by duct tape, using it for all manner of tasks. Personally, I don’t use it (probably ruining my creds as a ‘proper’ traveller) but we do carry a roll of sticky tape with which often comes in handy.
Calculator
Granted, your cellphone may have a calculator function but I often find these fiddly and annoying to use. Plus when you’re in the middle of a market or a dodgy store, the last thing you should do is get your snazzy iPhone out to calculate the prices and exchange rates.
A calculator is also a useful tool if you’re in a foreign-speaking land and don’t know how to say the numbers – either you or the vendor can simply tap the numbers in so you know what numbers you’re dealing with.
Selection of envelopes
Should you have to send anything by snail mail it’s really frustrating to have to go out and buy a whole pack of envelopes that you then either have to carry round with you or end up leaving them somewhere. Taking a small selection of different-sized envelopes means you won’t have to do this.
As an alternative, you can use services like eSnailer (free but only to US), Postful or ShinyLetter which send snail mail for you using an online interface. Nifty.
Notepads
Many die-hard travellers swear by their Moleskine notebooks and perhaps if I get a Lonely Planet gig, I’ll upgrade my tattered one to something more suitable for a Lonely Planet writer! You don’t need me to tell you what a notebook is for – except perhaps to say that it’s something that many successful entrepreneurs swear by!
Ultimately, the question of what you need for your portable office will be determined by the things you use on a daily basis. If you never use a set of colour pencil crayons, then do you really need to take a set with you when you travel “just in case”?
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Thanks so much for sharing the scanner work-arounds. I’ll be working in Poland for a few weeks this spring and I’m pretty sure I’ll need to scan some documents. Since I’ll have my camera anyway, this will come in very handy!
No problem…it’s amazing how creative you can get when you need to be!! Unfortunately we haven’t figured out a work-around to scan J’s A3 size artwork yet…but that’s what the copy shop is for
Another company that makes it easy to manage business when you’re away from the office/home is CallWave. You can get your voicemails via an online website or your email, get voicemails transcribed into text and sent as a text message to your cellphone, use a virtual fax service and more. It’s really convenient — if you’re abroad and don’t have an international cellphone you can see who called, when and what they said thanks to the online voicemail site. http://www.callwave.com
Lea – Regarding the A3 paper size, Qipit will automatically resize the picture of the captured document or artwork and size it for a 8×11 printable PDF. On larger pieces, just make sure to hold the camera very steady and use at least 2 mega-pixels (preferably 3), so it will capture all the details. Thanks for including Qipit in your tips for putting together a portable office. I would add a small extension cord to the mix and maybe a small 3 plug power splitter.
Lea, as I mentioned in an email recently, now we have started our exploits as LIPensioners in Phuket – an article soon, I promise – an item we have found to be very desirable is a printer. While the little ones you listed are good and portable, the consumables are expensive. We have bought a ‘disposable’ printer – Lexmark Z645 which cost 1120 baht – about £18. It does the job well enough and can be passed on where we leave, although it’s light enough to take with us if a bit bulky. Only downside is that it doesn’t have a driver for a Mac, but as we also have a PC, that’s ok. The Lexmark are cheap everywhere – in Italy the supermarkets have the same one for €29. A Canadian lady here was telling us that in Canada, owing to the cost of ink cartridges, when her printer runs out of ink, she buys a new printer since a new one comes with a cartridge! She passes the old ones on to charities etc.
For scanning documents, the photo route is very successful but I would recommend either using very good light (but not direct sunlight) or investing in a lightweight tripod or some means of conveniently holding the camera steady. Using a tripod, I once copied about 800 pages of documents in an hour and they are all readable on screen and of course in colour. Great and cheap way to archive and you could always store the important ones at an online service to make sure they are not lost. The resolution needn’t be high – a small file setting is ok. Just experiment to find the smallest file setting you are happy with. For A3, just use a larger file setting and you will get excellent quality – but ensure the camera is steady!
@Liz – thanks for the resource – I’ve heard of CallWave but not used it yet so good to hear that it works well.
@Conrad – thanks for the tip. Unfortunately for the A3 size scans, they are of original artwork and so need to be scanned in “professionally” so that the quality is good enough to be printed in a book. I am sure you can get the quality using digital photography (after all, that’s how they scan paintings) but probably not with our equipment…unless you’re like…
@David/My Dad – (who carries all his photography equipment around…don’t you deny it Daddy, I’ll ask Gail!!) J is on the lookout for a Lexmark printer – will be handy. We’ve just not been into town this week – too busy enjoying the beach although we saw a dead seal on it today which wasn’t pleasant.
Wierd bit of synchronicity. I just did a video post about this same subject.
In my case, it all boils down to storage and retrieval of data, so I have a keyring with about 50 gigs of usb drives on it that I carry around, in addition to the laptop and everything else.
Very nice read.
Jon
I was wandering the streets today looking for envelopes with some, but not great, success. Your suggestion for carrying around envelopes is right on!
We’ve also found that a skype-in number useful for clients (as well as friends/family) who are not very internet/skype savvy and don’t want to run up international phone calls.
We joke that most of our weight is equipment, but everything these days needs adapters, chargers and it’s all necessary when trying to work on the road. I’m going to look for an airplane adapter next.
Thanks again for a useful post!
Hi!
Great tips, thanks!
I’m not a LIP yet, but I’ve my own portable office (as I call it): the portable software in my USB pen-drive that I use at home and at office.
By portable I don’t mean the software labeled “portable” only, but all the software you can install one time in a computer, copy it in the USBpen and use in another computer. It doesn’t work for all software, but for many in Pc, I don’t know if it is the same in Mac
Thanks again and bye!
Rod
Hi Rod,
Yes that’s a great idea using a USB drive to run your apps off….I do it for Firefox but not for others although I’ve been thinking of it.
Thanks for sharing!
Lea
Great advice again. I use the U3 complaint USB drive with portable applications on it. It gives you a good variety of applications including firefox that I use regularly. I have also found that there is a program called Portable Apps that gives you a wider variety of applications for your USB drive. If that is all too confusing just search Portable Apps and you will find all you need.
With all that tech speak my best tool is a small wire notebook that I can put in my back pocket. Every time I have an idea I can jot it down. When I get home I put it in my journal for later retrieval.
ive been reading some of your articles and it really gives me ideas in advance coz i want to be a web worker someday hopefully
Hi Amelia – glad you like the articles and thanks for the comment. Lea
Just discovered your blog and I’m excited about all the info for working on the move. I’m liberating myself from software these days ( http://bigbrightbulb.com/work-the-web/webware-beyond-the-essentials ), and welcome your good advice on getting free of my desk too.
With all the buzz about web apps, it’s easy to forget that even virtual offices require a physical work surface with many of those useful bits you listed, whether we’re at a cafe counter, a hotel room table, or our lap in a park…many thanks for the packing list!
Hi Crystal – you’re right – there is such a buzz about web apps these days which is great because it makes some things so much simpler, but not so great if internet connections are dodgy or scarce!
Are you planning to travel once you’ve liberated yourself from the desk?
@Lea
I am ~so~ planning to travel!
But, er…just planning for now, until I accumulate enough funds or win the lottery. Thankfully, your blog keeps me clued in and inspired. In the meantime, I’d be happy for a hop into the city one or two days a week
I do dream of being LIL one day…though you’re totally right, I’d better have back up plans for spotty Internet connectivity if I go 100% Web…
Hi Crystal – where are you planning to travel to? Glad you like the blog – yours is pretty cool too!
Lea
Whew! Where does the week go?
When it comes to planning travel, I’m a fickle wench! I flip-flop on specific locations, but I’m always aiming for kind people, good food, and best-ly: fab weather. I dream of following warmth and sunshine around the US and the world.
I’m in the mid-Atlantic US right now, and I enjoy crisp fall days and the deep silence after a late night snow, but I tell ya…this winter has gone on 2 or 3 weeks too long for me!
All to say: you inspire. Guess I better buy your ebook so I can stop strategizin’ and get to tactics
~Crystal
ps Glad you liked my blog! Did you see LIL showed up twice on a Must Read list? http://bigbrightbulb.com/category/going-noware
LOL – we’re known for being flip-floppers too so I know how you feel!! Getting it more right this year than last however and it’s all a learning experience – there is no “wrong”
Ahhh, the challenges and bliss of having choices!!
Manhatten makes a couple of universal notebook power adapters. One of these could be the universal spare for both laptops.
http://www.manhattan-products.com/en-US/products/7586-notebook-power-adapter
For scanning and archiving documents, I use an online service called Pixily. You send them your paper docs and they archive them online in searchable PDF format. When you are on the go and need access to something, you simply logon and pull it up.
You can also ’share’ individual documents with people, which is useful for virtual assistants.