Travel and Best Practices

I have been travelling a lot over the past several weeks. In order to be at Walgreens on Monday morning, I need to fly in Sunday night, which makes for a long week. Two weeks ago, I was in Chicago Tuesday night through Friday night. I was in California late Friday and Saturday. Then I flew back to Chicago Sunday morning. I was in Chicago Sunday night, Monday, and then was in Texas Tuesday through Thursday. I've been home Friday, Saturday, and today I'm flying back to Chicago for an offsite meeting.

Although it is tiring spending a lot of time at the airport and on planes, it is definitely worth it to fly home for the weekend. I am very thankful I am able to do this. It helps add to my sanity because I feel like I have a home base. It also allows me to carry on my luggage instead of check it. So being at home base for the weekends is one of my best practices for the remote worker.

Here are a few other best practices that I've learned over the past several weeks:

1. If you are going to webinar/conference call into meetings, make sure to have one buddy assigned for each meeting. It is simple to log into the meetings, but not everyone is aware of how genesys works. The lack of knowledge means that having a conference call "buddy" is essential.
2. Keep your lotus notes calendar on central time. It really helps for scheduling meetings both through lotus notes and genesys. Even though it is only a 2 hour difference, always deal in central time and no one will be confused about when meetings are occurring.
3. Set up a continuation of weekly meetings with your manager to discuss what you've been working on over the past week and what you intend to work on in the upcoming week. This way, your manager is never out of the loop as to how you are spending your time and knows how you are prioritizing your work. This is also helpful for feeling connected to the corporate office.
4. Keep on online log (possibly a wiki weblog) of what you've been working on, so your manager can always refer to this to see what you've been up to. This also allows for transparency throughout the department.
5. Set up genesys meetings for the following week on the Friday before. Last minute meetings will always have to be planned, but sending invitations a week ahead of time ensures that everyone has the webinar invites and that you do not miss a meeting.

More to come...