By Joanna Martin

Do you know, one of the great things about where I am in my business now is that I can work from absolutely anywhere! I often hear from business owners that one of the reasons they left the corporate life is that they got sick of the commute and the endless hours spent in the office away from their family.

But then, they set up their business and although they’re no longer suffering the commute, they are still spending a ton of time cooped up in the office working.

Does that ring true for you?

I blogged a while ago on how you can reduce the time you work… today I invite you to open your mind to Man Laptop Stairshow you can continue to grow your business, but without the need to be tied to your desk… and introduce you to options that allow you and any team members to access the same resources from just about anywhere!

Anywhere you have an internet connection can become your office!

Let’s start there…

Mobile broadband:
With the rapid advancement in broadband technology, it is now possible to purchase mobile broadband dongles that work from a 3G connection… converting that connection into mobile Wi-Fi for up to 5 devices!

So now you can have a strong broadband signal even when you’re lazing on the beach or miles away from civilisation!

When we were in the UK recently, I ran an entire webinar from our caravan in the middle of a field in Wales using my mobile broadband!

That’s pretty cool huh!

Man with Desk in FieldMobile desktop
The next step to explore is mobilising your office computer desktop. I’m not great on the technical details but by installing a new control panel on your computer, your documents folder and any non-cloud based programs you use in your business can be accessed from any location and device with a broadband connection.

And with your mobile broadband you’ve covered this one off already!

If you’re like a lot of business owners, I’m sure you’ve come unstuck in the past when you’ve been away from your office and the document you need right now is on your office computer’s home drive… and unless you return to the office you can’t access it!

That’s really annoying isn’t it?

These mobile desktops can have as many users as you need… so if you have team members who are all working from the same documents or programs then this could be a solution for you.

Cloud file storage
The alternative may be that you routinely save every document in a cloud based file storage system. We Cloudsuse box.net for some of ours but you also have DropBox and plenty other free or paid options you can consider.

Cloud storage means that you can always access the important documents and you can share folders with your team so they can access them easily too.

Project management:
If like us, you have team members all working from different locations, each contributing individually to projects, then you can easily keep track of where everyone is up to using a Project Management program.

At Shift, we use BaseCamp but this may not be the best option for you if you only have one or two team members. Whichever system you choose, the idea is that you want a solution that allows you to set up milestones and allocate specific tasks to each individual member of your team… so everyone knows who is doing what.

So, my invitation to you today is to think about how you can mobilise your business so it fits in with your lifestyle. Does all of your work rely on you being in your office? What steps can you take to make more use of cloud solutions? Are you already able to work from anywhere?

Where are you working today?