Business on the Move: Tips to Stay Productive and Mobile

Working away from the office is quickly outpacing the typical 9 to 5 job in an office. In fact, there’s a high chance the coming generations will only hear jokes about the 9 to 5 workday from older generations and old entertainment. Mobile business has made the world smaller and connected us much more globally. But with every advancement comes new problems as well. It’s important to know how to stay productive while on the move because while mobile business is a great way of keeping up, it can also slow you down if you’re not careful.

Predict Distractions
No matter where you’re going, chances are you’ve been to that location or a location like it before. This means you have a better chance of accurately predicting just what kind of distractions you’ll be up against. Noise, family disturbances, and social media are only a few upsets. Plan for these and you can guarantee yourself a good amount of uninterrupted work time. Know what times of the day and what parts of the journey you can set aside for work.

Know What You Need
Technology has made it so we can be forever mobile while still managing a job. These devices do come with their own limitations though, power is the big one. To stay mobile, you need to make sure you have a charger for each device you are bringing. To stay connected, each device needs to have access to important drives and files. Without which, they become nothing more than three hundred dollar word processors. Know what programs or accounts you’ll need accessed. From different internet sources you might need to login a few times to your different emails and high risk merchant accounts for security reasons. Make sure you have all password and account information in a hard copy with you.

Know ‘No’
Even if you are all set to lock yourself away to work, people will try to contact you in the middle of putting together a report. In these scenarios, either ignore them until the job is done, or reply by telling them you’ll be in touch later. Take this even further by turning off your phone, closing your email account, and silencing any chat apps you typically keep open while you try to complete big tasks.

Focus on Proactivity
Finally, know what you want to achieve that day. From this point, you can allocate just how much time you need to dedicate to working, versus taking care of things on the go. Calling clients, for instance, is something that can be done while in transit. Choosing new credit card processors or high risk merchant services cannot. The better idea you have of what you want to get done, the better you’ll be able to plan your day.

Productivity and mobility go hand in hand so long as you know how to balance the two. By knowing what you want to get done, how it needs to be done, and where you can complete it, you can continue to run around taking care of errands while keeping up with work projects. If you plan it just right, you might even be able to buy yourself an extra weekend day.