Well, it finally happened. Forced work/life balance for many of us.
It’s funny (well, not that funny) that it took a virus to bring us face-to-face with moving away from the conventional office. If you haven’t already guessed, I am a big fan of unconventional offices.
Give me a horizontal surface basically anywhere and I can work. Paperless, virtual, anytime. My fav spots are my deck, or my kitchen table. Now days – I choose to work part-time in an shared office environment largely because I enjoy the people who are there. I love laughing and there are some funny people in our office space (Fred – don’t you have work to do?). Being a Solopreneur is lonely but that is a different topic for a different day. Also, if I am home – my SO/kids keep coming into my office space to visit and I have to put guidelines around that ALL THE TIME. Also a topic for a different day. Ideally – my home office needs a lock on the door.
So how do you evolve to a virtual office? Or even better, a paperless office which can allow you to go virtual on a moments notice? If you aren’t computer savy – there is a learning curve and very few businesses are identical.
Let me illustrate with my business as an example. Please note – I don’t have affiliate links in this article. I use these software programs because they actually work in my situation, not because I want to sell them to you!
My Inbox
My inbox consists of my email(s) in Microsoft Outlook, Hubdoc, and an actual metal Inbox sitting on my desk in our shared office space. Clients generally send their documents into Hubdoc via email or scanning (if they are a higher volume client) or just email (very little monthly volume). I have one client who is in the shared office space who doesn’t handle their own paper and pays me to make sure it’s scanned, and filed away for 7 years as required.
My File Cabinet
My preferred filing cabinet is ‘One Drive’. I have used many over the years: Dropbox, Box, GSuite, Google Drive etc. They all basically work the same for what you need to do. I use OneDrive because a fair amount of storage comes with my Office365 subscription. Basically, I have it setup like a conventional filing cabinet but in a folder structure rather than drawers and file folders. OneDrive also syncs to all my devices – laptop, home office computer, phone & tablet.
Having an online filing cabinet prior to COVID has saved my bacon a lot this past year and a half. I’ve had a few clients who had to scale down in order to save on costs and put all their office furniture and files into storage. Since I am a digital-holic, and they already had digital storage that wasn’t being used – I’ve had a number of important papers instantly available to them rather than trying to get a file drawer open in a crammed storage space. They have since converted to a fully digital procedure (or come over to the light side as I like to call it – who needs all that baggage?)
My Photocopier / Scanner
Can you guess? Yep, it’s my phone. I also have an Epson workforce scanner in my home office but it’s way easier to break out my phone and scan directly to my OneDrive with an App. Most cloud data storage comes with an associated method of scanning to them. I also scan all of my own receipts and bills to HubDoc as well as my client’s HubDoc accounts.
My Log/Note Book
Here is one area where I haven’t fully converted. I love a good notebook. I bought a crazy number of coloured pens and aspire to a beautifully organized notebook we all see in Pintrest journaling articles. I do use Microsoft OneNote to store ideas, client information, and very specific notes for ongoing reference but on the daily – I use a good ol’ coil notebook to capture on the fly notes about phone conversations, one off tasks for clients, my day, the weather, the kids, what to make for supper… you get the picture. I don’t have a wonderful memory so I write EVERYTHING down. And it usually only readable to me, lol. One day, Pintrest, one day….
I also rely heavily on either Asana or ClickUp and have all my repetitive ongoing tasks/procedures with each client setup there along with Timeneye in order to capture the time I spend within each client.
Conclusion
As I write this – I realize that I may be coming across as a card carrying Type A control freak! (Kudos to you if you are! Sure would be easier to run a business) I am not however. Just a chill Type B who aspires to make working anywhere anytime an easy thing.
It’s seriously not that hard, just different.