The Five P’s of the Digital Nomad Ethos.

by David Mould of Techdirt / Aug 13

Power

Carry a plug adapter. My personal choice is one where I can change the plate to fit the socket of my destination. If you have the room, and the need, carry a multi-plug power strip to make sure you have enough sockets for phone, laptop etc. I often travel to many countries on the same trip so only having to carry the single body and the relevant face plates saves me space. The traditional power adapters are too bulky for both carrying and easily fitting in to wall sockets and extension cables in most of the shared office spaces I work in.

Portability

The fine balance between functionality (memory, disk, screen size) and physical size is a difficult one to get right. Making the laptop plus all of the peripherals portable enough takes time and experience. Generally keep to the basics. Use a USB drive to carry the bulk of your storage supply. This will mean the laptop will generally be smaller. The added benefit is that you can plug this into any machine, doesn’t have to be yours could be a client’s machine. I find that my laptop is becoming more of a portal, a means to access data stored on my USB drive or on the extranet.

In addition I carry a U3 drive that allows me to carry a lot of the useful applications and run them on any machine. It is possible to not carry your laptop at all if you plan carefully.

Paper

Get rid of it! More than anything else you carry in your bag paper gets the heaviest and is the easiest to get rid of. Where possible create a soft version of your notes. For initial capture use the small, typically A5, notes books most hotel rooms supply (and their pen). As soon as is practicable enter this into your tool of choice on your laptop. Use a flexible tool that can be used for many purposes. I find Mindjet’s MindManager to be by far the best as I can use it for brainstorming, note taking, project planning and progress and the integration with Microsoft Office means I can output the content easily. Substitute paper based systems with soft versions (David Seah’s emergent task planner, Manager Tools One-on-Ones).

Packing

Get the right sized bag. The problem with the average laptop bag is that they are too big. It is too easy to accumulate junk that adds unnecessary weight (like paper). Choose a bag that allows for organization and ideally allows for you to carry at least one change of clothes in it. This will then become your carry on baggage for those airlines that only allow one piece.

Pipe

Connectivity is king. Mobile based modems (GPRS and EV-DO) are useful but price plans can make them prohibitive. Most major cities have some form of WiFi access from hotspots in coffee shops to MuniNets. Make use of them where you can. If travelling for a week or more consider taking a travel router with you to release yourself from the confines of what the hotel considers to be your optimum working area.

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