Working from a car

The one thing, if you are traveling around a lot, you might have to do is working from your car. And if you are already seeing clients, maybe you are doing this already. But the definition for you for working from your car might be just answering calls, bits and pieces like that, maybe just accessing your emails. But we are just going to have a look a little bit more about some things and some possible problems and also advantages of working mobile from your car. If you are working from your car, the first thing is you do not work while driving, in the sense, you are not really going to be dialing people, you are not going to be using computers or reading emails, stuff like that, just avoid all that altogether. But we are really looking at this when you are stationary. So the first thing is security. And if you are parked up in a lay-by because you have to have a Zoom meeting for example, you do need to think about your own safety. So make sure the car is parked in a safe place, make sure that if you are on a Zoom meeting, that the equipment itself is safe as well.

Trying to balance an iPad or a phone on the dashboard of the car while having a meeting is not always the easiest thing in the world to do. Make sure that the equipment you have got is kept in a safe manner, but also if you got equipment and you are having meetings, and you are in a public place, then also bear in mind everyone else can see that as well. Think about the background. Now, if I'm in a meeting in my car, I will often have the background just as the car itself, so the camera is pointing backwards. That way, they are seeing me on the meeting, but they are not seeing anyone in the background. So you have not got people pulling funny faces at the meeting behind, this can be a little bit distracting if you are in a meeting with a client. Other things you need to think about is internet connection. Now, you can park your car up near to a hotspot, maybe there's a restaurant or a shopping center or something that has got free WiFi, and you can hook into that. Now, in other videos we will look at security if you are using public WiFi, but within this environment, it may be a solution for you to use their WiFi, but look at the strength of it.

Some cars do have their own WiFi system built into them, but if not, you can use your mobile phone and create a hotspot and link in your tablet or your computer up to your own hotspot, and again, we will look at that in a different video, how you can do that. But make sure you got a good connection if you are going to have a meeting. I have had meetings in the past in the car and found that even one was in a service station, but the signal I got was very, very low, so I had to then drive out of the service station to find somewhere else to park. And then I'm on a remote road, so again, be careful of where you are parked. If you are using your mobile phone, you want to make sure you have enough data. What you do not want to be doing is halfway through a meeting find out you have used up your monthly allowance. Now, data on mobile phones is usually pretty large now so a lot of them will have large amounts of data, but also, if you are having a meeting, then if you are remote, then you can always turn off your video and just work on audio, that can help. It helps, especially if you are in a low signal area as well, that can keep the signal better. So check, just make sure that your phone can handle this type of work before you use it.

Also, if you are working in your car, the temperature in here can get very, very hot. You open the windows, you get lots of background noise, so just be aware of that. So maybe before the meeting, have your air con on so the car is cool, or when you are parked up, just open the windows. You can always, if you are listening to someone else, just pop yourself on mute, and then when you talk, just turn the sound on so other people are not hearing the background noise. Now, if you got a computer, there are different battery packs you can get now. This battery pack here will not only charge mobile phones and tablets, things like that, but this will completely recharge my MacBook here or any Windows-type device. You sort different outputs on the side here, one's for charging, one's a USB-C output, and one's a standard USB, and that can charge up computers really well. So when I'm travelling, I would always have that available. So if we are doing a show or something like that, we have also got power supplies on there for keeping mobile phones topped up as well.

So ever think, if you are traveling, what equipment you will need, but generally speaking, when I'm traveling, I will just use the computer, I have a backup power, I can recharge everything. And if I'm then working from a hotel or through family or wherever I am, I can just hook straight into mains, hook up on their WiFi or use the hotspot on the mobile phone. I try to use a secure way of dialing into the internet using VPN, a program that will run on the computer to get a nice, safe connection. And also, make sure that if I need to do a lot of work, I will link my laptop up with my iPad, and you can link those through so you have got effectively two screens. So this makes life a little bit easier if you are in that hotel working environment.

But just because you can work remotely, you can work from your car, your hotel, and you can maximize the amount of time in the working day, you do also remember to rest. So what you do not want to really be doing is having a long drive, stopping rather than just resting and having a coffee or having a break, and working sautedly, because if you are doing a lot of driving, having a break is very, very important. So do not just fill all that time up with work.