{"id":35941,"date":"2015-07-21T11:26:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T18:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/?p=35941"},"modified":"2021-08-13T02:24:29","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T09:24:29","slug":"working-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backblaze.com\/blog\/working-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make the Most of Working Remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Working<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m sitting in a hotel room in a small remote town in the south of Germany, where I\u2019m spending the week working. I did not come here because of a customer, partner, or work event. Instead my wife and I coordinated a week of vacation in Berlin with a work trip for her in this southern town the following week. I could have flown home after our vacation, but decided instead to try and work remotely. In this post I\u2019ll share a few insights from a week of working on the road.<\/p>\n

Tips for Working Remotely<\/h2>\n

One of the most important factors for successfully working while traveling is preparing for what is ahead before you leave. Everyone falls into routines when you work in an office everyday but once you hit the road those routines (good and bad) are no longer your guide. With that in mind, here are a few tips to help maximize your chances for successfully working on the road.<\/p>\n

Plan Your Projects Before You Go<\/h3>\n

At the office I use a couple tools to plan my day and projects (Things<\/a>, Trello<\/a>, and my calendar). I try to set just a few things that I really want to get done on any given day, and hope the random items that pop up don\u2019t overwhelm those tasks.<\/p>\n

For this trip, however, I knew I would have big blocks of uninterrupted time and that would change how I worked and what I could get done. I also wanted to make sure that when I woke up in my hotel, without the activity of the office or the flow of email, that I would have a goal of what I wanted to accomplish.<\/p>\n

I knew I still needed to take care of ongoing projects and things that would pop up, but I wanted to pick projects that were important yet hard to do with interruptions, but also not so overwhelming that I couldn\u2019t get them done during the trip. So, before I left I decided I would update our marketing plan, now that we have a new Director of Marketing on board, and write a handful of longer blog posts that were on my mind.<\/p>\n

Plan Your Projects<\/strong>
\nBefore leaving, pick a few meaningful projects for yourself,
\nbut be realistic with what you can accomplish.<\/a>
\nClick message to Tweet!<\/span><\/div>\n

Don\u2019t Expect to Have WiFi<\/h3>\n

Coming from San Francisco, I presume that I will have decent WiFi everywhere\u2014at home, work, and hotels\u2014and that I\u2019ll be able to access WiFi whenever I need it at cafes, coworking locations, and even public spaces. Heading to a technologically savvy country, I came with the same expectations. I was wrong.<\/p>\n

I walked into the information center in this tiny town and asked for recommendations on cafes with WiFi. None existed. Zero. In the whole town. No cafes, restaurants, or coworking spaces with WiFi. My hotel had WiFi, but it only worked half the time. A few quick tips for getting internet access:<\/p>\n