Office in your Car
More and more people are finding themselves using their car as an office environment. This is due to the fact that many of us travel from meeting tom meeting these days. Take the salesperson that has to meet clients in many different locations, sometimes all in one day. It makes absolutely clear sense to make sure that you car is a very organised and productive environment. Treating your car as a business environment means that you can rely upon it as a support tool when you are conducting business on the road. While it may seem most obvious that a salesperson would benefit from a productive car environment, it also applies to other professions too. Take the consultant who has to make meetings and conferences in many different locations during the week. Or the speaker who has to do the same. This article outlines some simple organisational techniques that one can use to make their car a mobile office.
Make sure, for example, that you have an easy to use calendar in your car. Whether this is on a PDA or cell phone, or a paper calendar that you can access on the passenger seat, make sure it is simple to operate and that you can view a week at a time. This way you can always be certain of not missing an appointment in the next few days. It can be argued that the well-run calendar is the one thing that makes busy people effective. Ignore this vital aspect of your working life, and you could very quickly find yourself swamped by work demands that could easily have been lessened with some careful use of a calendar.
Apart from a good calendar, the only other vital part of your day-to-day car office is note taking. Because we are all reachable via our cell phones, clients will often use this as a good way to change appointments, or to make new ones. Also, you may be driving along, and suddenly gain an insight into an aspect of the current project, or even just have a great idea that needs to be recorded. Having a practical notebook to hand, or even some index cards that can be quickly accessed, will mean the difference between being able to record important ideas, and allowing these ideas to fall by the wayside. Part of making anyone’s job fun and rewarding is having ideas that help you to develop. Not being able to record ideas will make your job a lot harder and a lot less satisfying.
Then we lead onto the good stuff. If you have a CD player (and most cars do) then invest in some good business CDs, or motivational CDs, to help make your journey a more productive one. There is nothing more positive than having words of wisdom pumped into your car while you are driving. It is always important to keep motivated, and having this resource to call upon is most definitely worthwhile.
When it comes to what you put in your trunk, you can get a lot more creative, and actually utilise this small space to your advantage. For example, you can quite easily find special containers that re designed specifically to be used in trunks to save space. These containers generally have Velcro or other fixings on their base, which means if there is a sudden lurch in traffic; the stuff you keep in your trunk will not go flying and get lost. It also means that the stuff you keep in your trunk will not be dislodged and fly at you or a passenger.
If you need to carry product samples in your trunk, get them organised into plastic bins or containers. Being organised in this way means that you won’t forget anything. It also means that you will be able to lay your hands on important materials at key moments, rather than waste time searching around in the trunk.
So there are some ideas that will help you towards you goal of making your car office a more productive and positive area. Many people now use their cars as offices, but they can only do that if they make a conscious effort to organise the space with care and attention.