Out of Office

Chris Pudney, Gihan MDiv Perera

Description

What would your life be like if you didn't have to spend every working day at an office?

Perhaps you would have a more enjoyable work environment, be able to spend more quality time with your family, reduce or eliminate the time and expense of a daily commute, reduce interruptions and increase productivity, be more flexible with scheduling personal tasks, and enjoy a more relaxing lifestyle.

This is not just a pipe dream. The Internet makes this possible and practical for millions of people, and you could be one of them.

This book is for you if you like your job or your business, but you'd like to use the Internet to give you more convenience, comfort and freedom in where and when you work. It will help you move "out of office", part-time or full-time, without being out of sight and out of mind.

Sujets

• Techniques
• Electronique et Télécommunications
• Electronique et Télécommunications
• Social aspects
• Computers
• Informatique

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456606152
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Using the Internet for
Greater Freedom in Your
Work Life
 
 
Gihan Perera and Chris Pudney
 


Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
Copyright © 2011 Gihan Perera and Chris Pudney
This publication is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted by the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the publisher.
All effort was made to render this publication free from error and omission. However, the authors, publisher, editor, their employees or agents shall not accept responsibility for injury, loss or damage to any person or body or organisation acting or refraining from action as a result of material in this book, whether or not such injury, loss or damage is in any way due to any negligent act or omission, breach of duty, or default on the part of the author, publisher, editor or their employees or agents.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing in Publication data:
Perera, Gihan.
Out of office : using the internet for greater freedom in your work life / Gihan Perera and Chris Pudney.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0615-2
1. Electronic commerce. 2. Telecommuting. 3. Quality of work life.
Other authors: Pudney, Chris.
658.041
 


 
 
Gihan: This book is dedicated to my nephew Riley, who will never have to work in an office in his life.
Chris: This book is dedicated to my wife Sheree and daughter Lauren, who make working from home even more worthwhile.
 
Acknowledgments

Our sincere thanks to the people who kindly reviewed a draft of this book before publication: Ian Berry, Vicky Cousins, Ian Hutchinson, Neil Mattingley, Graham Mullier, James Pinakis, Sheree Pudney, Ruth Sligo and Michelle Tate-Lovery.
The cartoons in the book are from the Web site xkcd.com ; and we thank the cartoonist Randall Munroe, who generously allows others to use his work. Speaking of cartoons, we also thank Sue and Andrew O’Brien, whose book Couple On The Run gave us the idea of using our caricatures for personal anecdotes; and Christian Iglesias, who created the caricatures from our photographs.
Some of the material in this book was taken from episodes of our regular Focal Point podcast. We thank Barbara Hennessy for transcribing the material, Justine Nofal for doing the first pass in turning it into something readable, and Manoj Sharma for designing the book’s cover.
We both now work outside the traditional office environment, but this wasn’t always the case. Making the transition isn’t without a few minor obstacles and inconveniences, so we thank all the people – family, friends, clients, colleagues and our extended networks – who helped us along the way and overlooked our mistakes. It’s because of their patience, tolerance and encouragement that we now both enjoy the work styles of our choice. We hope this book will help you do the same.
Introduction
In 1868, Milwaukee newspaper editor and printer Christopher Latham Sholes had a problem. He had created a writing machine, which he called a ‘Type-Writer’, for individual operators to print words on paper. His was not the first such device – Henry Mill had obtained a British patent for a similar idea as far back as 1714 – but it was the first to be commercially successful. It was initially marketed as a device for secretaries to transcribe dictation for their bosses, and many women mastered the skill of typing, as it was one of the few respectable jobs available to women – particularly unmarried women – at that time.
In fact, it was their success that caused Sholes his problem. His original typewriter keyboard had the keys laid out in alphabetical order, but that caused problems for fast typists because the moving parts of the typewriter kept jamming when adjacent keys were pressed too quickly.
Sholes struggled with this problem for five years, experimenting with mechanical improvements to the typewriter and different layouts of the keyboard. In 1873, when he sold the commercial rights for his typewriter to the Remington Company, he had settled on the familiar QWERTY layout we still see today on computer, mobile phone and tablet keyboards.
The QWERTY layout was designed with common pairs of letters further apart from each other, to reduce the risk of jamming the typewriter. However, it has some disadvantages – the most notable being that it heavily favours left-handers.
Various alternatives to the QWERTY layout have been proposed, but none have taken hold. Even though Christopher Sholes’s original problem has long been obsolete, his solution has remained, even though there’s no longer a convincing need for it. On the other hand, there’s no convincing reason to change, either – and that, of course, is why it remained the status quo.
In the last few years, though, mobile phones and tablet computers have introduced new technology – such as tapping icons on a screen – that is far easier than typing, and we’ve seen that people are happy to adopt it. Although typing remains important – and the QWERTY keyboard layout survives to this day – it’s not the only option available.
This book is about something else we believe is changing rapidly due to technology: the office.
The Industrial Revolution in the 18 th and 19 th centuries created the need for workers to come to offices every day. Until recently, many office workers had no choice except to work in the office, because that’s where they could find files, telephones, the secretarial pool and their colleagues.
However, working in an office now might still be convenient and efficient, but it’s often no longer necessary. We have access to files over the Internet, telephones in our pockets, secretarial assistance from outsourced providers, and can meet colleagues remotely.
Like the QWERTY keyboard, there are now feasible alternatives and compelling reasons to change. Millions of office-bound workers – employees and business owners alike – have changed their work style so they are not forced to work in an office every day from Monday to Friday. They do this for convenience, comfort and freedom – and they can be just as productive, and their organisation can be just as profitable.
This book is to help you become one of those millions.
We call this the Out of Office environment. That name comes from the familiar e-mail subject “Out of Office”, which you might have received from somebody warning you they are temporarily not checking e-mail. However, in today’s Internet-connected world, being “out of office” no longer has to mean you’re unavailable. You might be working from a home office, while propped up in bed, sipping coffee at a local café, sitting at a park bench, or even in an exotic country. This is sometimes called ‘workshifting’, ‘location independence’, or – more whimsically – being a ‘digital nomad’ 1 . Whatever term you prefer, more and more people are choosing this work style – and there’s no reason you can’t be one of them.
For those of us who know what it’s like to work full time from an office, this is an attractive scenario. For some younger employees – many Generation Y employees, in particular – it’s a fact of life. Many don’t just seek a better quality of work life; they assume it. They spend time outside work hours cultivating Facebook friends who sometimes turn into business relationships, they check e-mail and messages on their smart phones at all hours of the day, and they might listen to a business podcast at the gym. If they’re doing all this on their own time, they expect their employer to give them flexibility about working from home. This generation is sometimes criticised (unfairly, we think) for their attitude towards work; but we can be grateful to them for pushing employers and managers to consider Out of Office environments for their employees.
Who Is This Book For?
There are many books, courses, coaches and other resources to help you discover your passion, find your dream job, start the perfect business, do what you love and wait for the money to follow, or design a life where only four hours a week feels like work. These are all worthwhile aims, but this book won’t help you with them!
Rather, this is a book for people who are happy with their work. We assume you enjoy your job or your business, and you’d like to use the Internet to give you more convenience, comfort and freedom in where and when you work.
Take a few minutes now to imagine what your life could be like if you didn’t have to spend every work day at an office. Ask yourself these two questions:
• What unpleasant things could I eliminate from my life?
• What pleasant things could I add to my life?
For example, the answer to your first question might include: a long commute in traffic, a tiny cubicle as your workspace, bickering co-workers, people who constantly interrupt you at work, lack of natural light, expensive parking, late nights at the office, out-of-date software, and so on.
For the second question, your answers might include: natural light while you work, flexibility in your working hours, more time with family and friends, and so on.
This is not just a pipe dream; it’s a reality for millions of people, and it could be your reality as well.
You’ll find this book most useful if you’re a knowledge worker, who manipulates bits, electrons and documents rather than bricks, electron microscopes and door frames. It’s equally applicable whether you’re an employee or a business owner, and whether you’re at management level or not.
This is a practical book, not a motivational book. We assume you’re already interested in making this shift, and now want to know how to make it happen. If you’re still not sure, take a few minutes to complete the exercise in the Action Plan chapter . Go ahead – we’ll wait ...
We also assume – importantly – that your boss, organisation, spouse, partner and friends aren’t deliberately standing in your way. Although they might no