Work from the road– it sounds like a dream, but can more often become a nightmare. Spotty WiFi connections? Dragging yourself away from the beach to your computer? Working across multiple time zones?
There’s a lot more to making it work from the road than Instagram would have us believe. If you’re someone who wants the location freedom lifestyle though, you have to find a way to get real work done while traveling. How do you keep your business running, or even thriving, while working and traveling at the same time?
Set Work Hours
When you’re trying to get work done while traveling, you need to set aside time to work. Putting yourself on a schedule is the way to go. This is especially true if you’re leaving the time zone that most or all of your clients or customers are in. You need to make sure you can still accommodate them and get the work that needs to be done, done.
Stay productive from the road with a schedule.
Hire Help
Having someone that works for you who is not traveling can be a lifesaver. If your flight gets canceled, you can reach out to your team members to help you make sure the work gets done. If you decide to extend a stay in a certain area, your team can help rearrange your schedule.
Probably the most help people to hire (and the easiest) are a virtual assistant, a social media manager, or a project manager. Virtual assistants are great for keeping you on track, managing the flow of work, and making sure nothing gets left behind. Social media managers can lift the burden of having a steady stream of social content from your shoulders, freeing up your brain to focus on bigger issues. And a project manager can play many roles, but will help insure that all your clients needs are met.
Research Beforehand the WiFi Situation
A common blunder that people who are newer to the work-from-the-road-life is that they expect everywhere in the world to have the same WiFi availability and speed that their home does.
A cafe in Tel Aviv, or an AirBnB in northern Maine may not be able to deliver that. So before you make any reservations, check to see what the WiFi availability and speed is in your housing options. AND check the neighborhood around it. Always have at least one back up WiFi spot. Look for a library, a cafe, or a restaurant like McDonald’s.
If your business runs on WiFi, you have to do your research on it before you hit the road.
