{"id":1860,"date":"2013-01-04T07:21:07","date_gmt":"2013-01-04T11:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danielpradilla.info\/blog\/?p=1860"},"modified":"2016-12-04T18:13:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-04T22:13:47","slug":"tools-working-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielpradilla.info\/blog\/tools-working-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Tools for Working Remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"

Or how to telecommute without disappearing<\/h2>\n

This article belongs to the\u00a0<\/em>telecommuting and geographical independence<\/a> series.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Empty<\/p>\n

If there’s an aspect of the digital revolution that I’m passionate about, is the possibility we have to be omnipresent through technology. Thanks to mobile computing and the drop in telecommunication costs, everyday there’re fewer reasons to work in an unpleasant office<\/b>, set in a particular location.<\/p>\n

Surely, not all jobs can be performed remotely, but it’s also true that most of the times your job is the result of a personal decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Regardless whether you decide to work from home, or go to the other side of world, the key is to create the feeling that you are still there in the office, just as available.<\/p>\n

So, let’s say that you decided to try this working remotely thing and you convinced your boss to let you do it. In order to virtualize yourself, you need to rely on certain technologies that you’re already familiar with; but I want to invite you to explore the possibility of optimizing their use:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

1. email<\/h2>\n

Is your e-mail ready for telecommuting?<\/p>\n

1.1.<\/b>Search <\/b><\/h3>\n

You’ll soon discover that if no one’s around to answer questions on previously discussed topics, your e-mail client will become your oracle. It shouldn’t be more than a minute from the time you ask yourself \u00e2\u20ac\u0153where did I read this before?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to the moment where you find the conversation in your email.<\/p>\n

The best thing you can do to help your email find information is agreeing with your colleagues on a method to headline the messages<\/b>. I use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Project- Subject\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, so an email about a feature error on the employee list for the client’s XYZ project, would headline:<\/p>\n

XYZ \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Error on employee list<\/b><\/p>\n

When it comes to searching for it, I’ll just place XYZ on the search bar and I’ll get all emails related with that project.<\/p>\n

1.2. Consolidation<\/h3>\n

If your email accounts are all scattered, I suggest that you group them into one email system. All e-mail clients have this feature and you can even separate your personal and work emails in different files.<\/p>\n

If you don’t, you run the risk of misplacing all of those emails. And that’s a mistake you can’t afford outside the office.<\/p>\n

1.3. Tags, filters and smart folders<\/h3>\n

If you group several email accounts and projects into one account, you need to find a way to make\u00a0the inbox work for you<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Clients like Outlook and Apple Mail allow you to use intelligent rules that mark and file the messages according to its origin and destination. The most important rule is to separate personal from work mail. For this, you can create a rule that performs this job automatically.<\/p>\n

This video explains how to do it with Gmail.<\/p>\n