Sean Price – Tech Geek & Business Mind

A lot of my time is spent travelling and working whilst away can be a real challenge especially when you can’t always be connected to the Internet which for someone like myself is where 75% of my work takes place.

On the road, in the air, on the train or wherever I need to get work done as long as I have these bunch of tools then I’m good to go – What do you use leave your tips/tools in the comments?

My top ten tools I use on the road and why they are useful to me and possibly to you

Evernote (evernote.com)

Evernote allows you to keep track of everything in your life and put it into notes – its like downloading your brain to your computer – never forget anything again. With Evernote there is a Mac, PC, iPhone, Android and Web application available to use where by all you do is capture the information you want to save and its there for life.

So for example you can

• take a picture of something you want to remember and email/upload it straight to evernote
• write a note detailing something you want to remember, bread, the milk, your printer model for ink, shopping list whatever and then tag it!
• record an audio clip of a meeting, voice notes, tag it email it or upload in the application itself and its there
• Tweet @myen to let evernote know you want to store a tweet maybe it has a link/image in it

Why is this useful? I follow the GTD (getting things done) method of working and I have an inbox, next action and reference notebooks inside evernote and with their excellent search that will identify words on scanned in documents I can find anything I need very very quickly through hundreds and thousands of documents in seconds.

Remember the milk (rememberthemilk.com)

Having to-do lists are very common no matter if they are on paper, notepad on the computer, a web app or a desktop application – remember the milk is the killer to-do application online that allows you to create and manage unlimited amount of lists VERY quickly and easily.

As with all applications listed here its free to use with a pro account available (freemium model) with the pro giving you access to a windows mobile, blackberry and iPhone/iPod Touch application to manage your tasks on the go which is a must! I have around 30 different lists setup at any one time and I shall one day go over these lists on why they are setup so well and useful.

Try out remember the milk and see how you can manage your to-do items so much better – there is also integration with Twitter – tweet new to-do items and it will be stored and when they are due Remember the milk will tweet you!

Dropbox (dropbox.com)

Dropbox is an amazing application that has fantastic uses the simple version of what it does is its a online file store / backup software that gives you 2GB of free storage – which is great that is plenty for most people to store all their documents and photos and there are pro accounts with higher storage levels should you want/need it.

Heres the good bit though not only can you access all these files through a beautifully designed web application but the software you install on your PC/mac which intelligently decides which files depending on usage and size gets uploaded first will keep a copy in a syncronized folder on your computer for you. Meaning the second you update that file and save it – its gets saved, stored and secured back in your online backup.

But wait there is more…Install the same dropbox application on another one of your computers i.e. maybe your laptop, partners computer, your iphone(!) and all those files will be sync’d across ALL the devices/machines without the need for you to tell it to backup or sync. Edit, save and its copied straight away to all your machines! Never loose work again!

Oh and to save time from downloading the files from the online storage if your machines share the same network – it syncs across the network too which makes it lightning fast!

The is probably THE most important app I use on a day to day basis. Working from my personal laptop on a file, close it and on my work machine that file is there instantly! WOW

Drop.io (drop.io)

This service allows you to create small “drops” for free 250mb in size where you can upload files and quickly send the short link to a client for example which will allow them to download say a pdf or audio file you may need to send them quickly for review/approval.

Any time you need to send files too large for email (typically 10 – 25mb) then using drop.io is a great choice. I use this when sending large files to clients such as zip files with images or large chunk of documents etc.

Google Apps (google.com/a)

Google mail (gmail) was a breakthrough in email UI when it come out all those years ago now and in recent years Google created Apps for Domains which allows any domain to use Gmail/Google Mail as its backend – so rather than having Microsoft Exchange (costs money!) Google allow you to use their system completely FREE. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses small and large using this as their email system now.

I use it religiously not only does it have my email but it also gives you a calendar and contacts database of which all keep in sync with my blackberry and iphone (blackberry needs Google application installed to keep in sync) without any hitches.

Fantastic offering and all businesses should use it instead of ever paying for email services OR using crap like horde or the like for their email systems.

What do you use for your tools? Any tips leave them in the comments.

Productivity can be influenced or affected by so many things especially in the digital age where computers and mobile phones are so close knit to our daily routines.

Here I explain how I personally manage to keep on top of multiple projects and maintain a stress free (mostly) productive life while on the road.

This weekend I took a trip away without a laptop for once which is something I very rarely ever do as I like to stay connected especially for business purposes. I take a blackberry with me everywhere which is my main email / work mobile weapon of choice but to increase my productivity nothing can rival the iPhone (possibly soon to be an android when I get my hands on a nexus one!) this tool allows me to use several tools and applications that I would generally use on my day to day activities during work.

Despite not having a laptop my 3hr train journey allowed me to capture and sort all of the things in my head (GTD) and put them into the necessary collection points I use be that a moleskin notebook or my evernote and remember the milk GTD system I have setup.

With evernote this is your external brain whereby you can capture information in a variety of ways either through writing a text note, scan a document/image, record an audio note or snap a picture with you camera. Later you can tag and store all these items.

Remember the milk I take many of my to-do items and add them here. You can create as many lists as you like I have approximately 20 lists currently that range from the basic weekly-work-todo to shopping list, things to see at the movies or books to read. With all my tasks setup and contextualized I can clearly see what I need to do, where and when.

The great thing of remember the milk and evernote is that the both have web apps as well as evernote having native mac/windows/iPhone and android apps both applications sync their data so you are never out of date wherever you access your data from.

Catching up with audio-books on the journey was great as audio-books allow you to read books your interested in and stay actively working on whatever you could be doing. The weekend went smoothly for the most and creating an emergency only profile on the blackberry allowed me to keep the phone in my pocket without constant worry about incoming emails. With filters setup for only emergency or highly important emails to trigger alerts.

How do you manage productivity while travelling, on vacation or just away from the office?

Keeping on top of your daily work is difficult enough on a good day but now we are returning from the festive holidays many of us will have projects to jump onto and pick up again or even new projects that have already come in fresh this week.

For myself I’m in the last stretch of finishing two client sites, writing a new web app for a new client, writing my next talk for Wired Weston a local business event and maintaining my sanity whilst helping to keep others productive and balancing regular work load.

Having several projects to manage and keep track of no matter their nature can be difficult so I recommend using a tool from 37signals called basecamp (aff. link).  A free account is available with paid plans from only $15 per month. If like my business you are managing multiple projects it’s invaluable to have a paid version for more projects.

BaseCamp is a pay as you go service and that’s great because I don’t want to be tied to yet another contract service for my business and it allows me to upgrade/downgrade accounts at any time which is fantastic because one month we may want to track 20 projects, the next only 5 and in three months time we may be tracking 30 projects and having various levels of pricing depending on projects is extremely useful.

The web interface is very nice (take a look at the tour) – extremely easy to find your way around and perform actions such as making milestones, adding different types of notes such as snippets of code, copy-writing pieces, etc. Then you have an enormous to-do list functionality which allows you to create unlimited to-do lists and assign items to them of which you can assign to individual people within your company, set a due date and assign to a milestone you have setup for your project. Upload files of all your photoshop drafts, text pieces, code files, images, audio, executable files and much more to do with your project. Basecamp also allows you to track time spent on each task so you can see where your are spending most time and bill accordingly should you charge by the hour.

Running a business depending on the size of the project we generally give our clients access to their project on basecamp which allows us to work closer and easier to meeting their needs, quick turn around and even easier to help train clients on using the new system as they see it develop and how it works.

If you work remotely there are various iPhone applications to manage your Basecamp account such as Insight and Outpost (i use the most) or if you do not have an iPhone/iPod touch you can still access Basecamp via your mobile phone browser (with javascript enabled) and then integrate with your billing systems, invoicing, accounting and more with the many extras available.

Do you use BaseCamp or a similar product and what do you think?

Not only is it Monday and you will no doubtedly have “a case of the Mondays” but its also the first day back for many after the festive season, time to get back into routine, back to the daily grind of office life – or if your lucky enough to be doing something you love then its time to work hard and carry on doing the thing you love.

2009 was a difficult year for many businesses and people alike, with an enormous amount of businesses being closed down, cut back and project delayed we are all hoping 2010 brings around a much better year.

Personally you probably want to loose a few kilos of the belly, get back to the gym, maybe increase your wage packet by trying to get that position in the company you have been dreaming of. But as a company as a whole – what are your goals for this year – what are you aiming for?

2009 was the year of investing in yourself so this year lets invest in our companies and come out of the global recession with a boom!

Here are some of the things that as director of my own business I shall be aiming for:

• Growing my network – increasing my reach to customers both on and offline, attending more business events locally and interacting with local businesses more
• Last year I spoke at a couple of events regarding both Internet security and social media – bit of a difference there but this year I hope to attend more conferences to speak at
• A difficult task especially with a lot of personal tasks I will have this year to nurture but I intend on increasing the companies turnover by a great deal even though 2008 exceeded our targets!
• Not to sit back and let others strugle in the company or any of my clients I intend to do more one on one consultations both for charitale organizations and small to medium sized businesses
• Refocus and reorganize projects and developments within the company

I have a few personal and business aims and goals written down that I want to address but these are just a selection. What are you aiming for in 2010 both personally and professionally? What goals, objectives or challenges are you setting yourself or your business?

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