Adding to your Telecommuter Toolbox

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Thursday Bram posted a nice list of telecommuting tips on LifeHack.com today - things he says you should add to your “Telecommuter’s Toolbox” that could make your life as a telecommuter a bit easier.

Thursday covers a several must-have items (such as The Meal Plan, and The Outside Office), and I thought I would add a couple more to the list.

A Kitchen Timer: If you’re working in your home, you may find that you get caught up in work and lose track of time. Having a simple, wind-up kitchen timer can help. Wind the thing up, and set it in another room. When it rings, get the heck out of your chair, walk around a bit, stretch, whatever, and then go wind it up again. Sometimes the simple reminder that an hour has passed can motivate me to go downstairs and spend a few minutes away from my work. It may seem counterintuitive, but getting away from a particularly tough problem, like the ones that make me lose track of time, is often the key to finding a solution.

A Wall Calendar: I have iCalendar and Microsoft Outlook on the computer, but I also have a wall calendar positioned right over my computer monitor, so all I have to do is glance up to see everything I’m doing for the current month. If something is really important, it goes on the wall calendar. If you’re a freelance writer, you can use your calendar to implement the Seinfeld productivity method. If you’re like me, you also use it as a faux window. My current calendar has pictures of most of my family - my parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins. Seeing the people who are important to me is just as valuable, maybe more so, as seeing when my next big work trip is.

An Intel-Based Mac: I’m a long-time Windows user, though I’m not yet a fan of Vista. Even so, there are many many reasons to be working on a Mac. If you want the best of both worlds, get a new Mac (I use a 24 inch iMac) and then install Windows XP under Parallels or VMWare Fusion. You’ll be able to run all your current windows applications in the XP partition, while running all the Mac goodness at the same time. I often have a several Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Transmit windows open in OS/X, while running Office and Internet Explorer inside VMWare. Having two of the most widely used operating systems running simultaneously on the same computer is a huge time saver.