Since I know that many of you access this blog via RSS or email, you may not know that we have recently uploaded tons of new whitepapers and eBooks to our Downloads section.  To give you a little taste of what you can find over there, we have recently added:

• Leading Virtual Effectiveness: Four Strategies for Effective Communication in a Distributed Workforce
• It's Time to Review - And Renew - Your Telecommuting Policy
• The Top Ten Strategies for Managers of Mobile Workers
• Five Tips for Better Virtual Meetings
• 9 Management Practices for Exceptional Webinars
• Getting the Most from Your Marketing Events: The ROI of In-Person Seminars, Trade Shows and Webinars
• Emerge! How to Avoid the Seven Sins of Live, Online Presentations
• Beyond the Basics: How to Optimize Online Training for Maximum Impact
• How to Promote the Value of Online Training within Your Organization
• Five Keys to Getting Started with Interactive Online Training

Over the next couple weeks we will be making the Downloads section easier to navigate and more organized so that you're able to find the information you're after a little faster.

If there are whitepapers or eBooks you would like to see the Workshifting team focus on, please let us know in the comments below.

As always, thank you for continuing to make our little community around here so much fun to be a part of.

Photo Credit: ConanTheLibrarian

Today we have a guest post from Gene Marks.  Gene, an idiot, is also an author of four best selling small business management books and a frequent online columnist for Forbes.com, Businessweek.com and American City Business Journals.  Gene owns The Marks Group PC, a ten-person CRM and Financial consulting firm located in Bala Cynwyd, PA.

I am a remote worker.  And I am an idiot. 


I'm also the owner of a small business and everyone in my company also works remotely.  We used to have an office.  We now have a virtual private network supported by a local IT firm.  



And now Windows 7 is released.  Now that really sucks for my IT firm.

My ten person company is no different than many other small businesses around the world.  Most of the businesses my size are still in Windows XP Land. That's because they were smart enough to stay away from Windows Vista and all of its shortcoming.  I recently read Windows Vista has been adopted by only 8.8% of potential users.  At the same stage in its lifecycle Windows XP had been adopted by 87.1% of potential users.  



The bad news is that I've been told that my company is going to have to migrate to Windows 7 in the next year or two.  Citrix Online recently conducted a poll of 200 IT professionals in the SMB world and found that 42% of them expect Windows 7 will have "more than a small impact" on their operations next year.  And at the same time, only 13% of these guys plan on hiring extra staff to help migrate their clients to the new platform. 



I've got everything PERFECTLY organized on the computer I've been using for the past five years.  Upgrading me will not be fun.    



Thank God for GoToAssist.  Whether I decide to upgrade my existing computer (unlikely) or get a new computer (probably, but it still kills me to do so), my IT guys will be using GoToAssist to take control of my system.  This way I can turn my computer on while they connect and do what they have to do to configure my system. 



And thank God for GoToMeeting.  Because even before I let my IT guys touch my beloved, perfectly configured and trusted Windows XP workstation, I'm going to need to have an infinite number of conversations with them. With GoToMeeting, my IT guys can show me what I'll be expecting to see on my screen and how they're going to get me there. 



The research firm Forrester says that there are about 34 million "teleworkers".  They say that by 2012 enterprise mobile workers will make up 73 percent of the workforce.  My IT firm, and many IT firms like them, will have their hands full supporting idiots like me when we all have to upgrade to Windows 7.  They're going to need all the remote tools they can get their hands on.  



By the way I forgot about one other remote connection tool.  That's GoToMyPC.  I'll be using it to connect to my old Windows XP box which I fully intend to keep up and running.  Just in case Windows 7 hiccups.  Hey, maybe I'm not such an idiot after all!

If you want to read more detail about Windows 7 migration, online tools and why I'm an idiot, check out the extended version of this post, er, a whitepaper (or so I'm told): Windows 7 Migration and Online Tools.

If you're sick of reading, check out the webinar I recently was a part of: Windows 7 Nirvana Roundtable.

Photo Credit: techedlive

Many cubicle employees dream of being able to work from home, either for their current employer or through stretching out on their own as an entrepreneur - living the dream! In my own quest and through talking with other home bound warriors I have been thinking about some mental and psychological triggers and how that affects their performance and their growth.

Below are just some ideas around 5 Mental Workshifting Triggers that affect the way you work away from a traditional office.

Time Management

The first is a critical aspect to your success working from a non corporate office environment. How you spend your time dictates your success. Spend too much time on noncritical tasks and your paycheck, clients and output suffer. Spend too much time working on growing your business or working on tasks and you miss out of the benefits of location independent based working. There are plenty of sites and resources geared towards productivity.

This group includes:

To Do and Task Management - Remember the Milk, TaDa List, Prioritiz'd
Project Management - Bacecamp, Front Office Box
Life Hacking - Life Hacker, Zen Habits
Lifestyle Design - Four Hour Work Week, The Life Design Project, Rock Star Lifestyle Design Outsourcing - Source Control, eLance, Guru
Automation - TubeMogul, Ping.fm

Time management is something that many teach and few actually follow through. Personally I try one system every week only to play on Twitter and read RSS Feeds for hours and wake up and smell the deadlines. The best system I have found so far is the one that fits your goals and growth plans. Those that are ambitious and strive for excellence manage their time much differently than those with lackluster or passion driven goals (or those with no or undefined goals). Every person will manage their time differently from David Allen and the Getting Things Done system to the freelancer working a 9-5 and fitting in client projects with every waking minute, break and crack of free time in the day.

The end goal here is to find a system that fits within your values:

Step 1 - Define your values and goals.
Step 2 - Figure out what it will take to get there.
Step 3 - Manage your time to succeed.

Motivation

The second touch point is personal and professional motivation to perform the work. Seeing the body language and the amount of effort it takes to give and receive response, many home based workers have a tendency to be, for lack of a better synonym, lazy. Getting out of bed, putting on appropriate clothing and getting serious in your spare bedroom or makeshift office is a difficult task for many remote based workers.

How do we program ourselves to be motivated and excited to get out of bed 6 months, 12 months, 2 years after we begin working at home. The feeling you had the first week out of the office is now very distant and the same problems will begin to arise. Remember your first week on your own? Coffee was on at 6am, you ran a few miles before dawn and hopped out the shower with a crisp pair of jeans and even did your hair like you had a million dollar client meeting? Now it's 6 months down the road and the alarm snoozes till 8am. The run has turned into walking the dog to the "spot" and back and your basketball shorts and company picnic tee make your uniform look, well, you get the picture.

One of the keys to motivation is to always have something to be motivated about. If you are working from home just to get by, well, its going to be no different than mulling around in the office. If you started a company and became complacent with your clients and your income, well, then, get used to the groggy 8am wake up call. One piece of advice I got from John Jantsch (Duct Tape Marketing) is that we all need to be striving for the next thing. We all need to be treating our work like we are starting a business, the business of you. What I took from this is that we all need to be working towards "awesome" and whatever that is for you. For me it's a picture of an Audi R8 and some beach front property, right next to a picture of my wife. For me it's breaking free and living on my own terms and everyday I wake up, see these pictures, glance at my goals and get to work before the sun cracks the window.

Finding that motivation is going to be different for you and you will be inspired in different ways. The one thing I know if that we don't NEED Tony Robbins to whip us into shape, we need to find that fire deep down in ourselves and then seize the day!

Single Child Syndrome

One thing that many are not prepared for is the realization that you are working by yourself, in your home, alone. We attempt to supplement this with Twitter chat, Facebook and IM, but the fact is that human to human interaction is such a strong part of how we grow, learn and develop. Communication with people, like real, breathing people is something that helps me get through the day and can always give me a second to remember that no matter what business you are in its a people business.

Some cures for the single child syndrome can include conferences and events. The number one reason people go to large seminars and events is to meet people and learn things. They want to exchange cards, talk about their business and learn about yours. There are conferences and large scale events for every niche, every industry and every hobby on the planet. Some of the best networking for me has come from events where not everyone was a marketer. I've gone to food and restaurant trade shows and events to meet restaurant owners to talk Social Media and online marketing and as one of the only marketing agencies there I had some great conversations that were interesting and a great time that led to great relationships and ultimately business in the long run.

Possibly the newest form of live bodies in a room is the Tweetup. Get on Twitter, find some locals and find a place to hang out. Cheap, effective and very powerful for local community building. Other great sources of finding live bodies (aka not Twilight'ian vampires) Upcoming - Yahoo crowdsourced directory of goings-on in your neighborhood Eventful - Events based on location Mashable's Guide To Events.

Rotating Office Chairs

The 4th trigger is your ever changing office chair, and I don't mean the seasonal upgrade at Ikea (although that would make for a great Christmas gift if anyone is thinking of sending one my way). What I mean is the ever changing office settings from coffee shops to Panera's to makeshift home workstations to buses, planes and waiting places. When you were working in an office or going to school, you were prepared for the everyday consistency. You knew your seat, the time to be there, the people that would surround you and you basically had a routine. Now that your boss gave you some freedom or you made it on your own, your environment is no longer consistent. Even in your local coffee shop your table or chair may change, the traffic flow can fluctuate, new distractions come into play and your routine is now a routine of adjusting to your surroundings.

While you may be thinking that the freedom of choosing your workspace is awesome (and personally I think it is), there are certain time and space constraints that need to come into consideration. I for one, create a great deal of videos for my membership sites and filming screen casts are not going to happen at Panera. Other limitations can include download and upload speeds (even your home connection may not be as strong as those T1's at the old office).

The key here again to to determine your needs and evaluate locations in your hometown that match your goals and workload. For me it's a combination of working at home and in some local spots that allow me to be comfortable and get in the zone to write, record and manage my day-to-day activities. I also plan my days to fit the times at these local spots when I can best utilize their environment. For me its the post breakfast time. I find that arriving at 9am is a great time to get in some culture, then find quiet and hit the zone before the lunch rush. At home, its early mornings before my wife wakes up. I'd love to learn more about your limitations with your rotating office chair. (Share in the comments below)

Communication

The last major factor that I have been studying is the communication piece. I have found that in my companies and in many others this is still a major barrier to growth and stability. While the tools may be there, the lack of follow through and discipline inside of organizations is extremely disappointing. This can include email overhaul at the top of the list. A booking agent friend of mine sees over 200 emails from artists, other agencies, venues and major players every single day. This doesn't include the social media requests and general email. That is 200 emails that typically need a response and posiibly need it with time sensativity (a band en route needing directions or confirmation on a show time). This makes his business awfully difficult to manage even though he can work from anywhere at anytime.

Interestingly enough we live in an information society that can have answers to complex problems in a matter of seconds yet have payments sent to wrong addresses, sent to wrong people in the wrong format or miss the ball with time zones for scheduling. Communication is the number one reason businesses fail and succeed. From hiring new employees, freelancers or outsourcing - the ability to send clear and concise directions can be a major challenge. For work at home employes, being able to communicate virtually and maintain the level of activity can be very challenging out of the gate.

The best resources are only as good as the pilots using them. For my love of tools like RTM or Basecamp, if the orgization or individual fail to use them, the tools ultimately fail (or the user does, depends on whose eyes you are looking from). For many people and entrepreneurs in particular, the idea of communication while workshifting needs to be a top priority as the other elements we have talked about today fall into line if there is routine and efficient communication.

Conclusion

Today I really wanted to share some ideas and concepts that have been brewing in my head over the last few weeks. These are challenges in my own business and in businesses that I have the pleasure of learning about or working for. They all tend to be different for every business but the same in nature and the way you go about setting triggers and responses to combat the situations.

The main theme is surrounding your business and your work with actionable goals that continue to help you grow. Once you have these goals it becomes much easier to develop communication strategies, adapt to work environments, work with teams or by yourself, get motivated and manage your time. Let's talk in the comments below and see how you manage and work with these problems.

Photo by: David R. Carroll

Today we have a guest post by James Ware.  James is the co-founder of the Work Design Collaborative and the Future of Work program.

We all know there is a virtual explosion of distributed/mobile/flexible work occurring across theeconomy, including large organizations, small businesses, and free agents/entrepreneurs. In fact, our research suggests that fully 15% of the U.S. workforce now spends one or more days a week outside a corporate facility. We project that number to grow beyond 25% within five years.Yet managing mobile workers and distributed teams is an enormously difficult challenge. When your staff is working at great distances from each other, keeping them focused on their tasks and connected with each other and the larger organization often seems nearly impossible.

We've written previously about the "anywhere office" and the growing desire, if not need, of most knowledge workers to tune in and log on from anyplace at any time. But being connected technically is actually only a small part of the solution.

The most frequent objection we hear from managers concerned about the possible loss of shared knowledge and corporate culture when workgroups start operating more virtually is the fear of reduced accidental meetings at the coffee pot or in the hallways. They worry that distributed teams will suffer from a reduction in the serendipity that so often leads to important business breakthroughs--those unplanned, spontaneous conversations between people who don't interact normally in the course of doing their jobs.

More importantly, however, is the need to keep team members focused on common goals. One CEO several years ago posed essential questions about leadership of a distributed workforce:

"How do I know that our 5,000 employees spread out all over the globe are focused minute by minute on doing the things the company needs them to be doing? How do they know in the moment that they are making the decisions and taking the actions we want them to? And how do we know what they're thinking?"

There is no simple answer to this fundamental challenge, but here are four basic principles for connecting distributed team members with each other and the organization at large:

Use Highly Participative Approaches in Distributed Work Environments

People who are involved in decisions affecting their work are much more likely to go along with them. That doesn't mean that you have to get 100% buy-in before doing anything; just being asked about their views will go a long way towards satisfying most people, even if in the end their manager doesn't agree. It's primarily a matter of valuing staff ideas and acknowledging their individual perspectives.

Define and Publish Formal Policies and Procedures for Distributed Work

As soon as you allow employees to work remotely you are opening a can of worms, including legal issues, financial disputes, and potential misunderstandings. Legally, when an employee who is working at home trips over a rug and breaks an arm, is he or she eligible for workers' compensation? Who will pay for the home office furnishings, the telephone that is being used for work, or the Internet connection? And when is the employee expected to be accessible to other employees and management?

It is critically important to treat employees consistently--in all matters, of course, but particularly as they move into flexible work programs. Nothing will stir up employee anger or legal action more quickly than the discovery that some of them are receiving different levels of financial support or being held to different work schedules.

Establish Explicit, Tangible Measures of Individual and Team Performance

This is the single most important thing you can do to keep distributed team members aligned with company goals and each other. Formal performance and productivity measures (here are some tips on being a productive workshifter) serve several important functions:

• They establish clear guidelines and common expectations about how each distributed employee will be measured and rewarded.
  
  
• They help create an atmosphere of accountability in both directions and across the organization.
  
  
• They provide senior management with clear evidence of how cost-effective (or not) the distributed work arrangements are.
  
  
• They help shift the dominant management culture away from managing time spent on tasks to focusing on the results produced.
  

 "Managing by walking around," which was a common rule of thumb in the 1980's and 90's, has deep common-sense appeal in that it encourages managers to be visible and to interact regularly with their subordinates.  In that context, however, "interact" generally meant face-to-face communication (though it also often included peering, uninvited, over employees' shoulders to scrutinize their work).

But clearly that kind of interaction just can't happen in a distributed environment. It's absolutely essential to replace such close-in monitoring of employees' actions with a focus on the results they produce.

Develop Formal Agreements about Regular Interaction

One of the inevitable consequences of working in a distributed team is that members just don't see each other or their managers as often as they do when they are co-located. Yet we all know that more frequent interactions generally lead to higher levels of trust and greater comfort with other team members.

But with distributed teams frequent face-to-face interaction just isn't feasible. However, there are several critical points in the life of a team when being together in-person can make a huge difference:  at the very beginning, as the team converges on a design solution, and as it winds up its work and disbands.

For managers of distributed teams the bottom line is really very simple: Make the invisible visible for team members--be proactive in reaching out and paying attention to the personal/social side of your team's members, no matter where they are physically.

For more information on connecting and engaging distributed teams, read the full whitepaper.

I've been having some troubles with my laptop's wireless card over the past couple weeks that have resulted in many (painful) hours of support calls. As most of you Workshifters can attest, there's nothing more frustrating than having IT issues that prevent you from connecting with the rest of your team and getting your work done. It's an isolating, maddening experience that, in my case, often results in a series of "troubleshooting" solutions that features numerous restarts (maybe it will just go away if I restart?), lots of whining and plenty of phone calls to my unassuming coworkers, husband and anyone else I can think of. Since this approach rarely works, I've spent my fair share of time on IT support calls throughout the first year of my Workshifting experience.

As Workshifters, we have to be more adept at overcoming IT hiccups than our office counterparts. This can be a challenge for those of us who aren't particularly tech savvy. I'd like to believe that I've gotten a little better at handling these challenges over the past year.

Here are some things that have helped me along the way:

7 Tips for Keeping Your Cool During IT Support Calls

1. Chances are, you'll be asked to shut down and restart your machine at least once during your support call. This can be a time-consuming process since many of us have configured our machines to automatically launch numerous programs when the computer is started. I recommend reducing these programs to the bare minimum in order to speed up the process. This will reduce the amount of time you and the technician are sitting around in silence, twiddling your thumbs. On PCs you can do this through your Start Up folder.
    
   
2. Try and isolate the problem to a specific component, such as your modem, certain software or your wireless router. For example, if you can't connect to the Internet, you can try and determine if you're having the same issue on another computer or if it's isolated to your machine. This will prevent you from having to sit through a support call with one service provider, only to have them tell you that it's not their product that's causing the problem.
   
   
3. Make sure you ask your support representative if they keep a record of the issue on file. This will prevent you from having to re-explain the situation over and over again if you're working with more than one person. Most companies do this, but it can't hurt to double check.
   
   
4. Keep a record of who you're talking to and when you've contacted them - this can especially come in handy when you're trying to resolve a service-related issue.
   
   
5. Many computer problems are related to cabling and connections. Before you delve into the IT support world, make sure all cables are connected firmly. After all, that's probably one of the first questions you're going to get. (See Ian Fortey's hilarious post "Why tech support sucks: a look behind the scenes" for more on this).
   
   
6. Before you pick up the phone to call support, make a list of the things you've tried to do on your own to resolve the issue. Also, make note of any error messages that may have popped up. Share this information with your technician at the beginning of the call.
   
   
7. Also, Google the problem (especially if it's a software problem).  Who knows? You might get lucky..

What about you? Is there anything that has helped you make it through support calls without losing your cool?

Photo by: paloaltosoftware

Today Andrew Millard stops by from across the pond to help launch a new whitepaper concerning smarter commuting as part of the UK's third annual National Commute Smart week.  Andrew is the eCommerce Director of EMEA at Citrix Online.

The daily commute.  It's a thought that can send a chill down the spine of even the cheeriest soul.  Battling congested roads in rush hour, waiting on station platforms for delayed trains and squeezing onto packed buses.

If that's not bad enough, the evenings are starting to get colder and certainly darker, with the clocks going back recently, making the daily commute that bit harder.  

This week the UK's third annual National Commute Smart Week is taking place, with the aim of encouraging workers to reduce or even eliminate their daily commute to improve health, wellbeing and productivity.  

It's an initiative that peaked my interest and I was keen to find out more about the feasibility of introducing smarter, and more flexible, working approaches. So to coincide with Commute Smart Week, we commissioned some consumer research to uncover the real picture of commuting in the UK and pose the question: is there a 'smarter' way to commute?

How do UK workers commute?

The survey found that collectively, British workers spend around 26 million hours every single day commuting. While that works out to be an average of 49 minutes per person, there are one in ten of us who are travelling for a minimum of two hours every day.  

It can be a painful experience and when asked about the biggest frustrations with commuting, being stuck in traffic topped the list, with travelling in the darker winter months and the expense of commuting close behind. One in five Brits were annoyed about wasting time which could be spent more productively.

Given those results, it was no surprise to find that around two-thirds of us Brits want to reduce the time we spend commuting.

So what's the alternative?

It was clear from the research that British workers are frustrated by many aspects of their commute and that there is a real desire to improve or reduce their journeys. The people we surveyed were clear about the benefits of smarter commuting, particularly in achieving a greater work-life balance by reducing the amount of time wasted 'in limbo', neither at work or at home.

Many respondents identified ways smarter commuting could work in practice, such as working flexible hours so they could travel outside of peak hours, and working from home to avoid the commute altogether. Technology was seen as the great enabler, providing the tools to allow workers to connect with their workplace, colleagues and clients and carry out their job from any location.

Is it feasible?

Now I'm not suggesting that every business should rush to adopt smarter working practices just because workers are a bit frustrated with their commute. It's highly likely that businesses are placing even more value on a visible, highly productive and engaged workforce in our competitive and challenging economy.

But taking a more flexible approach, and utilising the widely available and low-cost internet tools that can enable this, could provide the key to businesses acquiring and retaining the best talent, improving staff morale and loyalty, and as a result, maximise productivity of their workforce.

By working together, employers and employees can gain a better understanding of each others' needs, assess the right approaches and test a range of options, which will help to transform the British workplace into a highly productive environment, while serving the work-life balance needs of employees.

You can download a whitepaper, revealing the full results of the Commute Smart research.

Photo by: raindog

I would like to introduce you to eWorkPlace, a new and exciting program available for Twin Cities metro employers. Are you ready to be an eWorkPlace Employer?

What is eWorkPlace?

Set in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, eWorkPlace is a cooperative venture to not only reduce traffic congestion and gridlock, but to assist employers to reach their bottom line more effectively. All types of employers are included (large or small, private, non-profit, and public) to offer the telework option of working remotely from the office at home or at another location. We are a unique collaborative of 11 partners (public, private and non-profit) dedicated to raise the level of telecommuting in the Twin Cities.

Why Now?

Now one might think the recession has a powerful effect on the amount of telework going on.  But the tides have turned.  Employers see the advantages of more flexible work in terms of increased productivity, greater employee satisfaction and being able to offer a carrot on the stick to those employees who may not have such high rates of compensation. In today's economy, every business is dealing with budget cuts, tight deadlines and staffing shortages. We're all expected to manage through these challenges while leading effective strategies and delivering outcomes

eWorkPlace assists Twin Cities employers to increase the use of telecommuting and flexible work schedules. The strategy of eWorkPlace is to move work to the employee rather than move the employee to work.

What do you have to do?

Employer requirements include definition of their expected level of commitment and reporting of results. Employers sign up and agree to a minimum number of telecommuters, either working during rush hours or at least 1 day per week.  We launched ours initiative in June 2009 and due to employer need for pandemic planning, we are receiving continued interest.

Employers can enjoy many free services and tools from national telework experts for a limited time. Expert assistance includes consulting advice, e-training and remote access strategies from MTIE, WFC Resources, and Superior Endeavors, an IT group. Employers have a wide range of services to ensure telework programs are practical and successful.  You can either start or refine your telework capacity. Information technology is an integral part of the office environment, especially as physical location is less important now than ever before. Technology is no longer a telework challenge, but rather has become an opportunity to increase productivity and morale while potentially reducing business costs.
eWorkPlace provides:

• Free telework toolkit and resources.
  
• Expert training and consulting services for qualified employers.      
  

We will be exploring some excellent employer examples in the future. Stay tuned!

For more information on eWorkPlace, head over to their website. 

It's great to stop working for a few minutes and get into the mind of an author that can really change the perception of your day and give you that kick in the butt you were looking for. I know sometimes working from home you need a little spark to turn off Hulu, the Wii or the kids. You need that light to go off. For me, I like looking into the strengths of others and seeing how they transcended their life, overcoming adversity or just said I am going for it.

This list is a god start and what I turn to when I am looking for some daily motivation.

4 Free eBooks That Rock My Day

The Zero Hour Workweek by Johnathon Mead

This is Jonathon's personal story of going from 9-5 to day job killer and breaking free from the constraints that were holding him back. This is a really meaty 60 pages that looks into how to get paid to be yourself with tips and insights into how grabbed over 10,000 subscribers to Illuminated Mind, writes for a top 50 blog, and created a full time income online.

279 Days to Overnight Success by Chris Guillebeau

Writer of the blog, the Art of Noncomformity, Chris has a nack for connecting with others by sharing his insights and instilling wisdom that really lights up the page. In this free resource Chris shares how he created his own brand, the motivation for his website and how he set himself free. This is really motivational and something that a lot of people can learn from, get excited about and do themselves!

How I Got 100,000 Subscribers in 2 Years by LeoBabauta

Most people in the blogging space know of Leo's story from humble beginnings to a book deal and total domination online with his suite of websites and products. Learning what Leo did right and wrong is motivation for anyone to become a rock star. His story is very possible for anyone and applying some of his knowledge in your business, whether it's big or small, can give you a jump start on the competition.

Spiritually Rich by Brooke Ferguson

Brooke, author of the Business Backpacker blog, wants us to think about our core, what makes us special and how we can use that to serve a greater purpose. The read is quick and exciting and offers those questions you need to ask yourself to get going for the day. To grab the eBook, you will need to opt-into her list, where she sends out very infrequent updates on working from abroad and lifestyle design.

So, that is my list. I am really interested to learn from you all as well. What gives you a quick jolt of energy when you hit that mid-day lull? Please share in the comments so we can make a great resource for people.