The woman standing next to me on the platform finished checking her email, and I smiled knowingly. It was my afternoon off, all my clients knew it, but I still felt compelled to acknowledge a couple of messages myself.

She was headed to the dentist, running late because she had tried to get that "one more thing" done before she took off. And she was still trying.

Does workshifting tether us to the job more?

Don't get me wrong - I love the freedom that technology brings. And Wi-Fi is awesomeness. But it used to be that when you left the office, you were gone. People didn't expect to hear from you until the next day. Now people are taking calls and emailing documents from the beach (which is fine when you're working at the beach). But the downside of this results-only workplace stuff is that we're swapping our downtime for "work where you want, when you want, but be reachable."

Maybe it's not workshifting, but perhaps we ought to be a little bit more careful about what we wish for. Or maybe it's just about reestablishing boundaries for ourselves.

What say you?

Photo credit: Pulpolux !!!

I thought the great thing about workshifting is that you don't have to sit in an office all day. You can grab your computer-tablet-Smartphone and get to work at your favorite coffee shop, or in the park, on an airplane, or even in a tree house (well, if you have a tree house).

Turns out workshifting might not be so awesome after all.

Have you seen the Work is Murder infographic? Mashable compiled a whole bunch of nasty statistics that show that sitting around all day is bad for your health. Wherever it is you happen to be sitting around. As in 14.6 pounds worth of calories we're no longer burning each year in our jobs compared to our parents and grandparents.

So what's a workshifter to do?

I've taken up workstepping part time, and here's what I've found out: it's easier than you might think to add a little movement into your day.

Here are some tips to get started:

1. Put on your walking shoes.

As in, wear them so you have no excuses.

2. Schedule breaks.

Think of it as a Pomodoro break for your body. When I'm sitting around most of the day, I try to take a walk break every hour or two. In my case, I walk a half mile on the treadmill--part of my quest to add 3+ miles of walking daily on top of my workout routine. But you can walk the halls if you live in a big high-rise building, go up and down the stairs in your house, or get outside and walk around the block for 5-15 minutes. The key: movement.

3. Walk while you talk.

Maybe it's because I've gotten used to moving more at work, but I've started pacing while I'm on the phone. Not every phone call, of course. But if you're on a conference call on mute and find yourself surfing the Web, can you stand up and stretch (or walk around) instead?

4. Dive into your RSS feed, check your e-mail, watch a video--and walk.

We're all taking in a lot of information every day. And we're mostly sitting down while we do it. TED talks, a friend pointed out, are great for walk breaks.

Bonus Tip:
Edit while you walk (and I don't mean a manuscript). This one is, admittedly, rather tricky as I've found that it's not so easy to walk and write at the same time. But it can be a good way to add a little exercise when you're editing through a white paper, back blog posts, or a client report.

Have you tried workstepping? What tips would you add?

I'm no neat freak, but every now and then I am compelled to do something about all the paper in my "paperless" office.

Some stuff is easy to get rid of. During the great office purge of 2009, I threw out dozens of software manuals (just the fact that I had software manuals tells you how old they were), boxes of 3.5 inch diskettes, backup tapes I couldn't read if I wanted to, and reams of obsolete writing samples from clients of long ago.

That freed up closet space, shelf space and filing-cabinet space for a while. But eventually my filing cabinet was crammed again--and something had to give.

The problem: Much of what was left to go was confidential material. Proprietary client documents, bank records, old checks, business invoices and a decade of tax documents. While I have a shredder, I'm not set up to shred in bulk. Plus I'd really prefer a mulch-creating shredder to my inexpensive crosscut one when it comes to my privacy.

Options

The District of Columbia has a shredding program as part of its awesome hazmat disposal service--but they don't appear willing to shred on site.

Office Depot will shred on site, but they're not cheap if you have volume.

Then I learned from my neighbor Steve Stern that one local company will bring a truck to your location and shred 10 boxes for $95. A great deal--but my office isn't that out of control.

The Solution: Community

I might not have 10 boxes, but my "community" does. Stern is a financial advisor, which means just about every piece of paper coming through his office is confidential. He has seven boxes ready to go. I have another two. And a friend of mine is happy to unload another box or two of old documents.

I'm discovering that there's a lot of satisfaction in a good purge. Does your community need a shredding day? Have you purged your papers lately?

Photo Credit: umpqua

The only problem with short commutes is not having one.

My commute is 10 feet. I get up, wander into my office, reach down and hit the "Start Me Up" button on my desktop.

I do this daily, except for Tuesday mornings. That's the day of the week I drive 20 miles away for a meeting, the day I leave myself 45 minutes for a trip I hope will take 25. Sometimes I leave an hour earlier and workshift for a while at a coffeehouse near the client's office.

Frequently, when I have to drive somewhere (versus just hopping onto a Metro train), I time the commute to avoid traffic. For example, if a client is a rush-hour nightmare away, I will schedule meetings between 10 AM and 3 PM.

When I was in graduate school, I lived in a town with a commute that was 4 blocks long. I'd drive 10 blocks out of the way just to avoid getting "stuck in traffic." It seems laughable now - except I pretty much do the same thing today.

I know that when I see bumper-to-bumper traffic that stretches for miles, all I want is to be heading in the other, less-crowded direction.

When you're not workshifting, do you time your commute?

Photo Credit: Aoife city womanchile

You know those days when you're hopelessly unproductive?

How do you respond? Come on. Tell the truth. Do you agonize over the research project all day hoping a "eureka" moment will break through? Do you sit there shuffling papers, reading, tweeting, or (worse) recycling lame jokes via email?

Or do you just stop?

I had one of those days recently. My to-do list was really long, but there was nothing that had to be done right away. My brain tried to focus on first one task and then another. Then I tried to tackle some low-hanging fruit. Nothing. Neurons definitely were not firing.

So I walked away.

I ran errands. Went for a walk. Took a nap.

I took the day off.

Workshifting takes discipline, but success is based on results and not time chained to a desk. Whether you work for yourself or are part of a bigger team, there's no one tracking your comings and goings. You either get stuff done or you don't. So why do we so often feel compelled to be "at work" on some variation or other of 9-to-5, Monday through Friday?

Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to take a day off.

Photo Credit: pmin00

Sorry Basecamp. Stay away QuickBooks. No thanks, Harvest, because I'm a paper girl at heart. Maybe it's my roots with my dad's old college typewriter, the non-electric one in which you had to pound the keys one by one so that the work of writing was truly work.

Or maybe it's because I just can't figure out why I should go to the cloud to track an expense I can just as easily mark down in my (big paper) calendar.

Yes, I know--these online programs don't just track stuff; they make it easy to sort, file, and make pretty reports. And they let the entire team track timelines, tasks, milestones, and budgets. They're systems--they're just not my system.

For all the systems out there, I haven't found one that is easier for me than "me, paper, and pen."

I crave simplicity.

I was on the #solopr tweet chat the other day when the question arose:

What do you use to track clients/campaign progress and keep it all straight? Paper? Software? Project management tools?

Here's the surprising thing: Apparently I'm not alone. A lot of the workshifters on the tweet chat said they similarly use paper for more than you might think given our early adopter status and propensity to tweet, chat, comment, and like stuff.

Kate Robins called us "neo-Luddites" (I think her exact phrase was neo-Luddites are great thinkers.) I'd define a neo-Luddite as a techie with one hand still holding a pen.

There's a reason Moleskine notebooks are so popular.

Are you a neo-Luddite?

Photo Credit: C.C. Chapman

I'm a pacing queen. Not of hallways and offices, but of miles on my feet at a steady, predictable clip that can stretch for hours. I'm a believer in watches, and chrono settings, and perfectly spaced intervals of pathway.

Then one day my watch croaked about 3 minutes into a 2-hour run.

Time management is great, and it can be a critical tool to keep us from getting lost in tweets or stuck listening to someone ramble on for 20 minutes in a meeting. And there's a whole industry built up around helping us block out critical task time, organize for efficiency, and even take breaks. Workshifting's own Heather Rast has talked about testing Pomodoro to try to get her to-do list under control.

There are even apps to guide us through brainstorming "exercises."

As a workshifter, we spend a lot of time creating systems to keep ourselves focused and on track. They're safety nets, barriers against the chaos of an unstructured life. I've written about it too. But innovation doesn't happen in 25-minute chunks. Sometimes we need to stop doing stuff and just concept, create, go with the flow, and see what happens.

The day my watch croaked I just kept running. It was exhilarating, and I came home brimming with energy and new ideas to test out.

Can you work without a net?

Photo Credit: prescottspies

Workshifters are an independent lot. We have to be, since we're writing the rules for the way we work--and likely the way more and more people will work in the future. Yet lots of people don't get it, don't get us, and don't believe that you can actually get stuff done when your office is alternately a home room, a park bench, a coffeehouse, and Seat 22B on a plane.

Today's post comes via a comment from Jon Humberstone, who posed the following question:

"I have worked solo for many years, and it is still a challenge to stay focused, disciplined and productive. However, I chose to work for myself specifically so that I wouldn't have to work 9 - 5. I resist the idea that I have to work a specific set of hours in order to be productive. I'm still searching for a more personalized way of creating patterns, routines, and strategies that help me stay productive without having to adopt the very work schedule I wanted to avoid. Thoughts?"

My reply: Being solo and working from home (or anywhere else you choose) isn't about avoiding routine--it's about being able to set your own routine.

I've found that, without some structure, it's hard to stay focused. So maybe you optimize around your biorhythms (I'm way more productive in the a.m.), or prioritize around key tasks or gym time. When I'm training for a race, for example, I look at the calendar and try to figure out the best day to run weather-wise. Then I try to block out that time on my calendar each week. And I often work on Sunday mornings, because it's quiet time when my mind is clear to write.

That's my two cents. What advice would you give Jon?

Photo Credit: khalid almasoud

Did you know that hospitals have great wifi?

Granted, a hospital is a weird place to workshift. But it can be done. Of course, I don't recommend a steady dose of it, because it tends to mean that you or someone you love is stuck in one. In my case: my mom. Without delving into the details, suffice it to say she was in the ICU for a week and in the hospital for two.

I've written in the past about how to avoid work pitfalls when you get sick. When someone close to you is in the hospital, however, you have to adjust to that, too. It's just not in the same way.

Here are my 5 tips for workshifting from the ICU:

1. Assess the Limitations. As workshifters, we're used to typing away in unusual venues and talking business in sub-optimal places. I even initiated a client call once when I was in a bar (disclosure: I was hosting an event, and I did give the client a heads up about the timing). But the ICU is not a place where you should be making or taking phone calls.
   
   
2. Give Clients (or Bosses) a Heads Up. Clients don't need (or want) the nitty gritty details, but they do need to know your schedule's in some flux. I was supposed to be setting up interviews for one project; we negotiated what had to be done and what could be postponed a week. (It helps to have great clients.)
   
   
3. There's a Human "Need to Know," Too. It's useful for clients and bosses to know your head isn't fully in the game. It's okay. We're human, and it happens. We just have to share that fact with other people from time to time.
   
   
4. Think Pen and Paper. There were enough machines in the ICU without my computer to get in the way. I used a pen and paper to draft several blog posts and work on some client stuff.
   
   
5. Books Are Good. I had a book review to write, which meant a book to read. The ICU is a quiet place to catch up on reading. I also used my Google Reader app to skim through posts on my Droid.

Yes, I did put the wifi to good use--after my mom was moved to a regular medical ward. (She's now back home recovering.) And I discovered that the cafeteria serves a good breakfast, making me wonder if it might be a good place to hang out and get some work done in the future. That is, if I hadn't already decreed that my family should boycott hospitals for a while.

Where's the craziest place you've workshifted lately?

Photo Credit: nerissa's ring

Could you work in an office? Not your office, but the kind that requires you to be somewhere else from 9 to 5. With people tracking your comings and goings, your lunch breaks, and how often you appear to be on a tweetchat or otherwise surfing the Web. You know. Office Space. The Office.

One of my immutable business principles is that I don't take on clients that want me to be onsite. The main reason, of course, is that I'm a business owner and not a freelancer. I have multiple clients, and I need the flexibility to schedule both client work and all the other activities that come with running a business. I might work a lot of hours, but they're my hours.

But there's a second reason: I just don't want to be in an office all day.

This question arose recently because I went in to talk with a prospect about some potential work. The client and I clicked. The project was interesting. I could easily have managed much of it offsite, coming in as needed for meetings and to touch base with people--and spending more hours onsite as the project hit crunch time. But they really wanted someone they could see every day.

Could you work in an office? I don't mean if the alternative were bankruptcy or being dragged over hot coals. But whether it's a viable option for you. If your answer is NO, then is that the measure of a true workshifter?

Photo Credit: walknboston