Rockin' it mobile: the willingness to crumple your jacket.

In the wee hours of the morning, I posted about how I’ve been doing the mobile thing for a couple weeks.

As I read over the post again today (narcissist alert!), I realized that I missed an opportunity to write in more detail about what rockin’ the mobile office is really like.

The Wee Hours of the Morning

Yep. I was writing that post around 2:00 AM. Sometimes I’ll do that when I’m home if I can’t sleep, but this time it was just necessary.

It’s tempting when you’re on the road to let things slide, like posting to your blog or even reading and participating on other blogs. Frankly, it feels like work.

Sarah Bray talks a lot about sticking to a blogging schedule. She’s right. You hafta. You gotta. Unless you want to start looking like a total flake and lose people. So I did. I was exhausted. I had just finished up some client work and could have called it quits right then, but I knew that I may not have the chance today (as it turns out… here I am. Again).

I’m not saying,”Work through the pain!” like one of those Go! Go! Go! work-til-you-drop-if-you-want-to-succeed people. It’s a personal thing. I just had to do it.

Oh, the client work? Yeah.

It’s one of my favorite things about having my own business: keeping my own hours. While that means that while we’re on the road we can go to dinner with family and friends or browse comic book stores in the middle of the day, it also means the work still has to get done, which means I can’t just flop down after the fun and “think about it tomorrow.”

So I stayed up late so my client could have her design proofs this morning.

So if there’s a lesson to impart about your schedule on the road, I can sum it up in a few short words: prepare to be flexible.

The Equipment

There are some people who run out and buy CS4 as soon as it hits the market. Other people are waiting outside the Apple store to buy the new Macbook Pro as it comes off the truck.

I am not one of those people.

Mission Control for Sparky Firepants Images is the 13″ Macbook I bought in 2007.

A lot of designers and animators like to tell me that I can’t run an image business with such small equipment. Uh-huh. Right. Let’s all say it together, shall we?

It’s not the size that matters, it’s what you do with it.

Thanks, that was fun.

I spent some time last week lovingly running my hands over the new Macbook Pro at the Apple store. Mmmmmmm. Want one. I’m not stuck in some Use What You’ve Got dogma. Oh, I want an upgrade and I’ll get it very soon. However, I’m running a business and I have businessy things like budgets to work with. One of the lessons I learned late in life is that you shouldn’t just buy what you want when you see it, even if you can.

I also brought along my Bamboo tablet (not the new Touch). Apparently that’s also not big enough and doesn’t have enough function keys. Or so I read in the forums. Ahem.

Hear this: Not one of my clients gives a flying frak how many functions my tablet has, or how big my processor is. In fact, they don’t even understand or know what my process is most of the time.

If they get their thing on time and it’s awesome, nobody asks if I used CS4.

I take extra special care of my stuff. It lasts. It works. I’m free.

The Space(s)

Mostly I’m working out of the back bedroom in my in-laws house (thanks, guys! You rock). A few times I’ve had to hang at Starbucks (sue me) and I rehearsed a presentation sitting in the front seat of my car in a strip mall parking lot under a shady tree.

The kids get loud, people come over to visit, I’m meeting someone later. Prepare to be flexible. Right?

Welcome to the mobile office and getting creative.

On a trip to NYC last year, I skipped the hotel on my last night and camped out in Terminal 4 at JFK. Same Macbook, by the way.

I’m not saying these are ideal working conditions. To make the mobile thing work, you have to be a little bit of a Boy/Girl Scout. You need to have a little bit of the adventurer in you. You have to be willing to crumple up your nice Gap jacket and use it as a cushion. Sometimes you have to scout out public restrooms (hotels and department stores are always good) and patrol for the free local wi-fi.

The Communication

I have an iPhone, therefore I am.

Hey, I’m in touch. I’m available. No less than if I was at home, because my iPhone is my business line. It goes with me everywhere, so I’m already a step ahead in the mobile office game.

In my workshop last week, I talked about the importance of having a separate phone line for your business. This is one of the reasons. If you get a cheap-o Cricket phone, you can be anywhere and still keep the command center running.

I had a Tracfone for most of last year. It served the purpose (my kids use it now).

E-mail. Twitter. It’s all still in the same place it was in Oregon.

I have to admit, it’s been more difficult to stay on top of the e-communication lately. It seems to take a while to settle in and establish a schedule for handling the incoming stuff.

I think that with a little more time on the road I would develop a more solid routine than “Oh crap! My 24-hour e-mail rule is almost up.”

What I’m Saying

I’m saying that as an independent you can hit the road and keep things running. Or not. The truth is, nobody really cares if you blog or tweet or publish that e-book. Your clients care, but they’ll find somebody else if you fall off the face of the Earth.

So that’s really the biggest lesson. Keeping things running while you’re on the road is completely and totally in your hands. It’s possible, but you have to be willing to roll with the punches and be creative.

I highly recommend it, even for short jaunts. Take advantage of your indie status. Take advantage of your family. Take advantage of the thousands of coffee shops with free wi-fi around the globe.

Now get out. I mean that in the nicest way.

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