This Saturday at 11:35 I will be in track C (C for Champions, of course) of the WordCamp Madrid. As always when I can, I take advantage of the trip to the capital to see some of the friends I have there. Not all of you, because there are so many of you and it's an odyssey to balance agendas, but I usually go varying to see as many of you as possible.
The first mistake that many people make when I do this or when I go to Cantabria for a few days to be with the family is to say to me "you're on vacation again, how well you live" o "you have taken a few days off for this". Unfortunately the fact of working as a freelancer from home or from a coworking space or wherever you can, gives you a flexibility that sometimes people misunderstand. Like being able to call you at any time -don't call me, you know what happens-. Or to think for better or worse that you are always busy or that you are always free. I know cases of both extremes.
This flexibility and, above all, the sector in which I work, allows me to travel with my office in my backpack. Because really, with a laptop, a power outlet and an internet connection, I can be up and running. And there are more and more plugs everywhere and the batteries last longer. And even in the middle of nowhere there is some 3G coverage so I can share my mobile connection with my computer.
What do I usually carry besides my laptop (a MacBook Pro) and my cell phone (an iPhone 7) when I go on a trip like this? Well, for those who expect a detailed list of devices or gadgets, I'm sorry to say that there is little else. Chargers, headphones (without them I can't work, without them and without Spotify), the VGA adapter in case I need to plug into a projector that doesn't have HDMI and that's it. Well, and not anymore. My notebook, a couple of pens and a pencil also travel with me.
I admit it, I have tried all the existing methodologies, I have read articles, I have seen other people how they do it and in the end I have discovered that the only thing that works for me to manage myself is to have everything written down in a notebook. Blessed technology. So I don't use Evernote as I used to and the only green thing in my notes is the color of the cover of my current notebook.
My nomadic office, which I talked a lot about in this blog years ago, still consists of a series of apps that solve my life: Dropbox for files, Spark for mail, Slack for communications, Feedly and Tweetbot to stay connected with current events and news, Pocket to review what I can't consume at the moment, 1Password to only have to remember a password and Trello to organize tasks and projects with other people. This along with Firefox as a browser and Sublime Text as a text/code editor is what accompanies me on my days away from the office desk.
Anything I'm forgetting or something I should add to my must-have list?
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