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Dodging a Runaway Train in the Sub-Tropical Home Office
By Jeff Zbar | September 6, 2008
Hurricane Gustav. A near-miss. Tropical Storm Hanna. A nuisance. Ike. A freight train that seemingly is taking the southwestern line, and sparing those along the northbound tracks.
Life in the home office during hurricane season is part adrenalin rush, part roller-coaster, and part sheer fear.
It’s not enough that home officers have a family to worry about. Is school in? How soon will they cancel classes? Do we have supplies — ice, non-perishables, drinking water, batteries, sedatives for the dog — at the ready?
But then there’s the business. What will I do to protect the PC and its data? How can I ensure the mere threat of a storm, and the downtime I may suffer, doesn’t scuttle my business?
Being a 19-year home officer, I’ve had ample experience with this mean season. Here’s my top three tips to protecting my home office and staying productive:
1. Deploy technology. I have — and use — a Verizon Wireless USB broadband access Internet card, a laptop, Gmail and an HP Upline Web-based data back-up service. Between these four tech apps, I can run my business from anywhere. Even without the laptop or Verizon card, give me an Internet cafe anywhere outside the storm’s “cone of uncertainty” (which my family jokingly refers to as the “cone of death”) and I can work. In fact, during Hurricane Wilma in 2005, I worked for a week from Toronto, Canada, while South Florida was without power.
2. Plan ahead. This means, when a threat becomes apparent (not just a storm deep in the Atlantic, but when three days out, you’re feeling like you’re in the cyclone’s crosshairs), move into action. Email clients to let them know about potential downtime. Augment your email sig file to mention the possibility of downtime. Change your voicemail greeting to say you might be down for a while. Do this early; once a hurricane warning is in place, tweak sigs and vmail greetings will be last on your must-do list.
3. Remain calm. To tap a line from [If] by Rudyard Kipling, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”, you’ll not escape the chaos and calamity of a storm. But you might remain focused and weather it a little better than most…
Topics: Personal Organizing |