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Give Me A Home Where The Digital Nomads Roam
As a digital nomad myself I’ve found that despite the wonders of an “almost always connected” environment there remain challenges in the motivation and attention departments. The ability to do work on the road pretty much from anywhere and actually doing work from anywhere are not – excusing the pun – even remotely the same two things. In fact it is important to be mindful of one of the classic pitfalls of being a digital nomad which is using the power of the ubiquitous workspace to put off “until later” work that is best done from the office – e.g. work that may require paper or personal documents or information histories that are unavailable online. The ability to work 24/7 should not distract you from the fact you cannot work 24/7, and need to manage your time effectively regardless of your work environment.
That said I’d argue that the productivity pitfalls for the remote workforce pale next to the productivity advantages. A workforce of digital nomads can use downtime in airports and waiting for meetings to check email, make calls, and conduct other follow ups. Unlike their counterparts who are chained to an office desk at a single location, the digital nomad travels fully equipped to handle most if not all the demands of their job from pretty much any location. Customer complaint needs handling in real time? Call them and email follow up online information and links to support the troubleshooting. Server down? Remote reboot from a laptop with EVDO card or over coffee at a WiFi hotspot at the coffee shop or airport.
An example of a digitally nomadic benefit I experienced last year came while covering CES 2008 – the massive Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. I often worked from the blogger lounge, using online tools and blogging combined with Treo picture uploads to cover several sessions and product launches almost in real time. I could work faster and cover more things than the professional journalists at the event. When GM CEO Rick Wagoner released the Cadillac Provoq I was one of the first – if not the very first – to have pictures online since I could take the shot and then upload and caption it from my second row seat at the Venetian Ballroom.
In summary I’d suggest that productivity is more a function of the worker and how they are motivated than which tools they choose to use, but certainly companies large and small should always look for the best ways to digitally enable their workforce, empowering them to work effectively … anytime and everywhere.
Embrace Digital Nomad Peculiarities
Do more by embracing the peculiarities of digital nomads
Digital nomads share some similarities with traditional office workers, but they also have a unique scoring system on what motivates them to participate and stay engaged with a project. It’s important to embrace those differences because that will encourage independence while realizing gains in productivity and a reduction in turnover. Here is a breakdown of some good ways to keep productivity high.
- Learn from Facebook. The system is immensely popular because it allows people to interact with their friends easily and in creative ways, and it’s fun because there are various ways to poke, tease, challenge, and compliment friends. A system that transplants some of those same concepts to a cyber working environment will be extremely effective by communicating in a fun, intuitive way while preserving and expediting core kernels of information.
- Be open with digital nomads about problems the company is facing and successes it is enjoying. That opens the way for suggestions on how to improve a situation and celebrating victories encourages repeat behavior (just be sure you find out how people like to be recognized first). It also helps participants feel like they have ownership in the organization.
- Respond to suggestions from team members, because if they take the time to create a written suggestion there usually has been some thought behind it. Seeing suggestions implemented is even better because it helps team members feel like their opinion is valued and leadership is in touch with what’s happening on the front lines.
- Pay attention to successes and recognize them with monetary compensation whenever possible, though simple recognition is good too. For example if a writer is able to wrangle a large swath of traffic from a popular search term by including relevant keywords and an attention-snatching title, let them know you’re impressed!
- Some face-to-face time is best. At least for now humans react best to seeing each other in person. It allows us to read body language more clearly and understand other points of view the clearest.
- Recognize the support team. For example a disorganized CEO would never make appointments without a strong administrative assistant. A star blogger wouldn’t bring in nearly as much traffic without the regular posts generated by other writers on the team which make a blog a daily destination.
- Help digital nomads manage any necessary time tracking and invoicing easily as that kind of work will quickly aggravate them.
- Allow independent decision making. If digital nomads are too bound by a series of checks and balances they may not be able to respond quickly enough in a high pressure situation.
- Finally, be clear and upfront about what your expectations are for digital nomads regarding deadlines, time reporting, and pay. It will foster a good relationship and keep team members focused on building success for the company.
Quantified Objectives
My work as a digital nomad is compensated based on detailed invoices that I submit on a weekly basis. Each line of my invoice describes in detail the project I worked on and the amount of time I spent on it. At the end of the week, my payment directly reflects my productivity. This keeps me motivated to be as productive as I can be or I suffer the consequences. I would recommend this type of relationship to any digital nomads and their managers, as opposed to a salaried position.
However, there will be some cases where salaried workers work remotely, if only on occasion. Under these circumstances I would recommend that salaried digital nomads and their managers create a weekly (if not daily) plan to accomplish a mutually agreed upon set of tasks. I will add that a realistic approach to setting goals and timelines is key to making this type of relationship work effectively. Some managers like to ask for more than what can realistically be accomplished in a given time period as a means of getting their workers to ‘try harder.’ However, this can often lead to undue stress on the part of the worker, and risks establishing a pattern of missed deadlines. This is an unhealthy working relationship that will probably not last for long.
Instead of always asking for more, I would suggest to those who manage digital nomads to discuss goals and set timelines in a dialogue with workers. When both parties agree on a realistic set of goals for a given time period, the worker is then accountable for getting the job done. Of course there will always be unforeseen variables that affect the timely completion of certain tasks, so it is the responsibility of digital nomads to maintain regular (at least daily) contact with their managers to keep all concerned abreast of their progress. If a digital nomad consistently fails to deliver or communicate, then he or she is unfit for the job and should be replaced.
Targets and Communications
We’ve all been there. Mobile, in a service station or hotel lobby or hanging around for a meeting at a client’s offices. We know we’re supposed to be getting that report finished during the day but between ‘just checking our email’ (for the dozenth time that hour), ‘heading in search of a coffee’ and ‘having a quick game of Bejewelled’, somehow the report doesn’t get fitted in and the day becomes more and more fragmented. “I didn’t have enough time”, you tell your (remote) boss.
Of course you did, you just didn’t make the task one of sufficient priority. It’s true that there are just as many distractions in a traditional office, not least that of chatting to fellow workers face to face, but the solutions are similar in each case.
- Make sure targets are set each day/each week for your nomadic staff. As with any employees, they need to know that ‘you’re on their back’. Not necessarily in a heavy handed way, but with enough sense of communicated urgency that the priorities filter down into their hourly activities. There has to be some sense of guilt when a nomad veers too far in the ‘email/coffee/Bejewelled’ direction. And, of course, targets needed to be daily/weekly checked, discussed and revised.I’m not advocating driving staff too hard or shouting at them down a phone line. I’m talking about recognising that distractions are all around and making sure that the things that need to be done are seen as appropriately urgent.
- Helping to achieve the above is the world of modern, mobile broadband/Web 2.0 communications. What’s needed is a virtual office, to replace the physical one, even if it’s something as cheap (free) as a joint Skype (or Google) chat group. With such an IM-like virtual office, the news, notes and instructions being bandied around your team can be seen by all and everyone will feel involved in the group’s endeavours and accomplishments. Email (both one to one and group cc:ed) is another important tool, of course, with lengthier documents and communications keeping the digital nomad in the loop.
With 3G-connected laptops, sophisticated hands-free car kits and smartphones, there really isn’t any excuse these days for many digital nomads not to feel almost as part of the ‘office’ as the guys and girls stuck in the stuffy, air conditioned complex on the 13th floor….
Typing On A Plane: Notes From The Field
Working on the road is not for everyone. Some people need the structure of the office: Compress and organize on the way in, checkpoint with co-workers at the coffee pot, then buckle down and knock out some deliverables at the desk. This daily ritual helps some to focus, and draws a sharp distinction between work and non-work.
But all of this is disrupted for a “digital nomad” like me. My commute can be a walk downstairs or a ten-hour combination of drive, wait, fly, and bus. My check point can be a phone call, IM or Skype, or a sip/meeting at the Starbucks near the client site. And I buckle down to work as often in a seat on a plane, a hotel room desk, or unfamiliar conference room as at my desk.
It is surprising, but many mobile workers are not the driven and focused “type-A” folks. Rather, they can be extroverted, disorganized, and scattered, which seems a poor match for the self discipline needed to get things done on the go. But attention deficit can easily be turned to hyper-focus, and this is the key to my success!
Get Organized
Before you head out on a trip, prepare your mobile workspace.
- Creating an essential toolkit that is always with you. My laptop bag contains everything I need to get work done, and each item has its own spot.
- Don’t raid the travel bag at home. I force myself to keep everything in the bag so I don’t forget it.
- Invest in just the right gadget. I’ve got two retractable cords that charge every accessory from USB so I only need a single “wall wart” power supply.
- 3G Internet access is essential, and pairing it with a battery-powered WiFi router like the Cradlepoint PHS300 makes it even better.
Travel Right
Do what you can to make life simple on the road, freeing your mind for work.
- Don’t spread out at the hotel. I never put anything in hotel drawers and make a single “pile” for everything that I collect so I won’t forget things when I go.
- Sticking with a single airline, hotel, and rental car brand helps reduce mistakes. A single missed flight due to confusion about terminals and security lines will be more expensive than a year of incremental costs from sticking with one airline.
- Bring along your own entertainment rather than trying to find radio stations and TV channels. Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch are awesome when combined with TiVo To Go!
Focus!
When it’s time to work, focus is the key!
- Tune out distractions no matter where you need to work. I often use my in-ear headphones as earplugs, and I never watch the hotel TV.
- Arrange a work area on the go, with a travel mouse, mobile Internet connectivity, and right-sized laptop. I’m very pleased with what I can get done on the 15″ MacBook Pro.
- Get an extra laptop battery so you won’t be forced to stop working when you run out of power on the road.
Although I’ve often extolled the virtues of finding unique things to do while traveling, I spend much of my road-trip time working. There is always time for both! Even if you’re not a natural organizer, you can get things done on the road. Organize, simplify, and focus!
Productivity On The Move
I am a digital nomad, and have been so since I started doing freelance writing for a number of IT publications. I also do some consultation, as well as giving classes at a local college. The various commitments, meetings and deadlines have conspired to keep me on the move, with the majority of my deliveribles in digital form, and involving the Internet.
Today, I share three tips which have enabled me to be both productive and efficient, which in turn leads to motivation to keep at what I am doing.
Be task-orientated
It is very easy for the connected digital nomad to be distracted by emails or instant messages (IMs) that are not relevant to the particular task at hand. While it often doesn’t take much time to respond to a single IM or email, a whole series of them within a span of an hour or two can be a serious hindrance to getting work done. In addition, IMs don’t normally end at one, and could easily escalate into a full-blown conversation before you know it.
The simplest method not to be distracted would be not to open your email and IM client for unrelated tasks.  For many digital nomads though, doing that might not be an option. In such a scenario, a digital nomad might do well to only read – and respond – to new IMs and emails upon the completion of a task rather than every single time a new IM comes in. Big tasks can be split into smaller chunks for this purpose; imposing a time-frame between checks can also work.
Some productivity gurus even go as far as to advocate replying emails only once or twice a day. Personally, I view that as being a little extreme, though it does underscore the importance that the digital nomad be completely task orientated in order to be productive.
Be properly equipped
Nothing is more annoying than wasting precious time trying to locate tools to complete what should be a simple task. An example would be not having a flash drive to transfer a large file to someone who is physically with you. Such a scenario could well lead to a digital nomad attempting to email the files out – not suitable for files more than a few megabytes in size, or trying to use the mass storage modes of smartphones instead – which might not support the fastest USB transfer speeds.
Personally, I invested in a wireless mouse I bring along everywhere with my laptop, as well as a mouse pad – so that I can work even on glass or highly reflective tables. Other peripherals that will stand you in good stead might include various retractable cables, and the ubiquitous flash drive of course.
In addition, I have also learned not to rely on power points at places where I am “staking out” or assume the availability of Internet connectivity at wireless hotspots. While a power socket or a wireless Internet connection is always welcome, I do ensure that I have sufficient battery life left in my laptop for the work at hand. I also carry along a 3G wireless data modem in case the Internet at the wireless hotspot is down. Indeed, buying a spare laptop battery might be something a digital nomad might want to seriously consider.
It is in this context that the non-gaming digital nomad should forget about a separate desktop rig at home or in the office. Simply working off the same laptop will result in tremendous savings in time not spent having to synchronize files, data, or bookmarks around the place. If your laptop is an ultraportable, or even a netbook, you can consider acquiring an additional LCD monitor for your home or office as an easy way to get a larger display.
Finally, one more thing I’ve found about working on the go is this: Not every place is comfortable for you to plonk down for long hours of work. The ambient temperature, the chill of the air-conditioning, the level of the background noise, even the glare of the sun or lighting all conspire to maintain or wreck your productivity. Obviously, this is irrelevant if you are out of town, or travel to places that you are not familiar with. However, it does makes sense to go to places where you have been before, and are comfortable with.
Learn to take a break
As mentioned earlier, I do a substantial amount of work as a freelance writer. I have contributed to IT-related sites such as TechRepublic and Ars Technica, and am also the editor of a few other on-line publications. As a well-equipped digital nomad, the temptation is to keep working. It could be due to the slippage of deadlines due to insufficient focus, attempting to take on more work than is realistic or sheer unadulterated passion.
Whatever the case, the conclusion I have arrived at is this: there is always more work to be done.
I have learned to allocate time specifically for leisure, as well as prioritizing time for family and loved ones as I plan my workload and time. Obviously, being single and young helps, but nobody stays that way forever right?
There is a Chinese saying that goes along the line of, “Rest now, in order to go the greater distance.” I have found it to be true in my case. Rather than staring blanking at the computer for an hour and producing little due to exhaustion, why not take a short break, and come back to complete hours worth of work at twice or even thrice the speed?
Discipline and Structure
Keeping mobile workers in touch – and keeping in touch with mobile workers – is not different from any other self-governed work. There are two types of structure which are needed: Discipline among the workers; and a clear and well-defined work structure.
To start with the discipline:
When people are not in the office, they must be able to get the information that their co-workers are using easily and efficiently. This means work has to be structured from the start, so that communications can be structured accordingly. Not every task is suited for mobile work. Making sure that everythign works smoothly means routines; discipline means following them.
For those who work from outside the office, the most important thing is to be able to share information with their co-workers efficiently and easily. This does not mean email; if you are on any public email list, it means hundreds of spam messages. Using blogs and RSS is equally efficient. But they must be easy to use, and people who use them must be disciplined enough to enable their co-workers to get the information easily. Cooperating with people outside the company often means email. Of course, urgent requests should be answered urgently – within the same working day.
This also means having good support applications that make administrative work easy, and automates as much of those tasks as possible. A worker which has to fill in forms and discuss them with the secretary every time he wants to get something done is not very efficient. If there has to be meetings (and very rarely there does – except to agree the project plan and task assignments) there must be good support tools for that too. A great teleconferencing system is sufficient, however, if the routine is to take minutes in all meetings – and the routine is to follow them.
The discipline is also necessary to get the mobile workers to publish and backup their work regularly. Making it avilable on their internal blog pages is not only a great way of making sure that others can see what is going on (if they can find it easily, which is a precondition); it is also a simple and useful way to back up work so it does not get lost. If the work always is kept there the most you can lose is a days work. But it means people should not work on hundreds of different things at once, and that brings us to the next structure necessary: Planning and structuring work.
Mobile work is a project: Plan and structure
When workers are independent, deliver according to a pre-agreed plan, and can trust that it does not change, they will work more efficiently (as has already been established on this blog). This goes for everyone, including those who feel that work is a place where you meet co-workers and that you need to ask the manager before even getting coffee. If the work is planned and clearly laid out, and the project plan is agreed beforehand – but there are points where it can be changed without breaking anything – then the workers can be efficient in their own pace. The trick is managing the plan, and not the workers; and get their buyin before the work starts. If they do not agree to the plan, it will only work with lots of painful direct communication between the manager and the workers. Not that direct communication is painful – it is necessary too – but it is a problem if the mobile worker is in a completely different time zone, for instance.
For many managers, it will be a hard problem to agree to a plan and then keep their hands off until the tasks are supposed to be done. For many workers, the idea of agreeing to a plan is somewhat alien. Both have to change.
Motivation comes easily with work satisfaction; satisfaction comes from control, and control comes not only from control over the daily work. But also from control over the project plan. This is why it is necessary for the workers to buy in to the plan beforehand, and why getting them to do this is the most important part of the managers work. If users feel they are involved and that they are driving the work, they will be satisfied when they conclude it successfully.
But with a good project plan which everybody is committed to follow, and the discipline to take minutes, put work on the wiki, blog a couple of times a week – there is no reason the mobile worker should not be equally well knowledgeable about the important part of the colleauges work as if he were in the office.
Pushing The Envelope Of Losing Yourself
“Are you coming to dinner?” my wife asks after a long day for both of us. Do I power down and hope to finish writing my report after she’s asleep and risk losing myself to sleep? Or, do I ask for another 30 minutes to complete my work, making her and the rest of the family finish up without me? As a digital nomad, this tradeoff — the blurring of the boundary between where work ends and the rest of life begins — is one that needs to be continously addressed to ensure productivity remains high.
Facetime in traditional work settings
I define “facetime” as the unproductive time spent in the office trying to present oneself as being productive. Whether working on Wall Street or in a software startup, much of traditional business is spent demonstrating one’s commitment to his job and his firm. Many times, this commitment is measured in hours spent at the office, regardless of actual production.
Productivity — real productivity — is no longer being held up to paradigm of the iron-man employee, working close to 60+ hours a week in the face of a personal life in shambles. Hours spent at the office is no longer indicative of the real contribution an employee provides to the enterprise. Just check out how much time is spent at work on non-work, non-productive activities.
Redefining productivity
I propose we define productivity in the post-facetime, digital nomad world as such:
Productivity = amount of completed work + impetus to complete future work
Modern businesses recognize that knowledge workers work best when stimulated by their work balanced with productive lives outside of work (family, community, whatever).
Digital nomads have the best of both worlds. No longer tethered to our desks, we face the ultimate challenge of defining our work and life spaces completely under our control. While we’ve moved beyond the time-honored facetime required to progress in traditional business settings, though, we’re faced with the prospect of completely losing ourselves to our work. If our home is our office, our struggle is working too much, not too little, as the lines between work and life are blurred.
How to avoid burnout on the work front
When facing a work day that has no beginning or end, a common digital nomad maladay is burnout. Here are a few tips gleaned from web workers to stay fresh and productive.
- create a work schedule: without one, workers tend to work all day. By scheduling work time and personal time into a hectic day, digital nomads maintain healthy boundaries.
- taking vacation time: digital nomads tend to thrive on worker hard and worker long hours. There has to be some way to completely (or close to it) unplug. Downtime is necessary for future productivity.
- convene team/group meetings: getting together in person with other team members helps to bring untethered workers back from work nevernever land. It helps centers workers and put work into a social context.
- Google workers can appropriate some of their work time to work on projects that interest them personally. Nomads should learn from the great GOOG.
How to avoid sacrificing your personal life on the altar of digital nomadism
While much ink is spilled over keeping productive on the work front, if we believe that a balanced life brings more productivity for the mobile worker, keeping a healthy personal life is just as important.
- all the previous points above help create delineation between work and life
- finding hobbies unrelated to work: many digital nomads take to hobbies that are quai-related to their day jobs, like blogging or podcasting. While these pursuits are certainly admirable and fun, they are too contextually related to one’s day job to perform separation and recharge.
- exercise: you can’t work when you’re profusely sweating and breathing heavily.
- have kids (lots of ‘em): kids keep you young. kids keep you (extremely) busy. Kids also help keep you centered and focused on what’s really important.
Bringing it all together
Balance is key. Digital nomads are prone to sacrifice future productivity for current work. Balancing work and life is essential in finding a groove for workers on the go. Being able to define our working lives around our personal lives is a tremendous opportunity and challenge, but we really can have our cake and eat it too. We just need to make sure we can pull ourselves away from work to really be able to enjoy it.
