Not every Digital Nomad secretly harbours dreams of being a full-time traveller, working from wherever they lay their laptop. However, some do, and the Digital Nomad workstyle does make that more feasible than most other ways of working.

Freelance Web designer Nathan Swartz wrote about taking your career on the road as a full-time traveller, offering these five key steps:

1. Organize Your Accomodations
2. Rediscover the Internet
3. Set Yourself Up for a Digital Lifestyle
4. Inform Existing Clients of Your New Hours and Availability
5. See the World!

Read the full article here.

Whereas office workers might be sent on courses or receive on-site training, Out of Office workers are often responsible for their own professional education. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are to education what OOO is to work; they allow you to time-shift and place-shift your learning. In this episode, Chris shares his experience with doing an online course using popular course provider Coursera.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here

Buy the book here (available at a reduced price for a limited time).

References:

• Chris’s blog posts about his experience
• The Coursera course about data analysis (which Chris did)
• Coursera.org
  

If you travel for work – and this is common for Digital Nomads, as well as for many other workers who travel for business – you might find yourself in the position of having to collaborate or present remotely with colleagues and clients. This can be a challenge when you’re using different technology than what you normally use in your working day.

Webinar expert Roger Courville has 7 tips for webinar presenters who have to present while on the road. These are useful not only for webinar presenters, but for other online collaboration – such as Skype, video conferencing and teleconferences:

1. Plan ahead for a hard-wired connection
2. Take an extra computer
3. Test your connectivity…well in advance
4. Travel with a VoIP headset
5. Dial in your mobile phone as a second line
6. Stabilize the microphone on your mobile phone earbuds
7. Send a copy of your slides to someone else

Read the full article here.

We both spent time away from home over the last couple of months, so in this episode we share some of our experiences, including principles to help you plan your own business trips.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here

Buy the book here (available at a reduced price for a limited time).

Resources:

• The Complete Business Traveller Gadget Checklist

If you’re travelling for business or because you’re living the life of a digital nomad, it’s useful to know what you need to take in order to be productive on the road. Everybody has their own list of essentials; here’s one from Lifehacker:

1. Powerboard
2. The right device(s)
3. The appropriate chargers
4. Universal USB cord
5. Wi-Fi hotspot
6. International power adaptor
7. Bootable USB stick with key documents
8. Headphones
9. Screen wipes
10. Portable phone battery

Read more in the Lifehacker blog post here.

The excessive fees charged by mobile phone companies for global roaming services have been in the news recently.

Digital Nomads have several options when it comes to mobile phone use when travelling internationally. Angus Kidman lists ten ways to avoid global roaming rorts.

Do without:

• Switch off roaming before you go
• Use non-phone channels
• Book accommodation with free WiFi
• Locate free WiFi
• Update your voicemail message

If you must roam:

• Set up a data bundle
• Don’t use non-essential sites and apps

Use a prepaid travel SIM:

• Make sure your phone isn’t network locked
• Make sure you have the right frequencies
• Challenge a large bill

Read Angus’ article in full on the Lifehacker blog.

Many airlines now offer inflight WiFi. This means Digital Nomads can be online even when they’re cruising at 30,000 feet.

Workshifting blogger Clay Hebert offers a counterpoint. He suggests eschewing airline WiFi for the following:

• Catch up on email; read, digest and compose a few email messages. Send them when you’re next online.
• Compose a few blog posts (I drafted this on a flight from Singapore to Paris)
• Read an (e)book or magazine
• Relax with a movie or TV show from the inflight entertainment system

The ever-expanding reach of the Internet means that it’s possible to be “always on” – permanently connected to the Internet. This seems ideal for Out Of Office workers. However, it can have its downsides; you can be flooded with interruptions and distractions.

So, think first about whether you need to be on-line. If you do, then by all means tap into the Cloud even if you are in the clouds.

Apart from all the technology you carry around with you, what else do you need to be able to live a Digital Nomad’s work day? Susan Murphy has some suggestions in her post, “The Workshifter’s Non-Tech Toolkit”. My list doesn’t match Susan’s exactly, but it was well worth reading anyway – if only to trigger some ideas for me.

The following is a quote from Tim Kreidler’s opinion piece The Busy Trap in the New York Times:

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

Out of Office workers are particularly prone to the “Busy Trap” because our homes are often our workplaces. This makes it all too easy to spend all our waking hours working.

In the “Finally Free” chapter of the book we offer a few tips on how Out of Office workers can separate work from play. These include taking short breaks during the working day, planning social appointments at the end of the day, and, as Tim Kreidler suggests, unwinding and letting our batteries recharge.

WorkSnug is a tool

…that connects mobile workers to the nearest and best places to work in the major cities of the world.

It allows you to run a location-based search for nearby workspaces that cater to Out of Office workers. Each workspace is rated according to the following categories:

• Power: the availability of power outlets
• Refreshment: the quality of food and beverages
• Community: the people who attend the workspace
• Noise level: how quiet the venue is

There is a checklist of features for each venue such as free WiFi, membership requirements and formal areas. People can also write reviews of each workspace.

Many workspaces have been added by the WorkSnug team but others are being added daily by the WorkSnug community.

Mobile apps for WorkSnug are available for free for Android, Apple, Blackberry and Nokia devices.

The next time you’re looking for a mobile-friendly workspace try WorkSnug.