The joys of online work

I must say that I love my job!

A few weeks ago, on a Friday, I left the office at 4pm and continued to work at home, from the comfort of my bed! :) Just after 5pm I received an email from a friend. She was still at work because it was raining, and she was waiting for the rain to stop before making her way home. That was one of the many moments of appreciation for my situation.

Whether it rains or not I can work. Whether I’m at the office or sitting on a
park bench I can work. Whether I’m in Cape Town or another city I can work.

This is a great blessing. It allows me to be quick in servicing my clients, it allows me to do my research, reporting, training preperation, etc without any limitations, and it brings about immense convenience to my life. Of course time management plays a very important role in all of this, and if you do not manage work time, personal time, and family time you might find yourself facing some problems. About one month ago I posted an intriguing video by Tim Ferris where he comments on ideas in his new book called The 4-Hour Workweek. Go and view it here if you haven’t seen it yet.

Just yesterday my brother-in-law, Ismail Aziz, told me how his work suffered last week due to the Cape Town rain. Ismail does a range of maintenance work on houses and buildings, and when the weather is bad work cannot proceed. What does this result in? Of course completion of projects is delayed. What does that result in? Of course final payments are delayed. Not a very favourable situation!

I like to analyse different things – whether they’re related to business or not. One thing that amazes me is that no one seems to be able to get away from the good old-fashioned business card. Electronic business cards, mini-cd business cards, etc have come onto the market, but the regular printed card is still the standard. Tech and non-tech business people still exchange them daily, all across the world.

On the contrary, working at a single office is no longer the standard. People are no longer compelled to be office-bound as they were many years ago. People can now work from home, or anywhere else. Of course this is due to the advent of the Internet, and more so the recent advent of wireless broadband online connections.

However, even though the Internet is known as the “Information Superhighway” – and even though podcasting and e-books have become so popular these days – the traditional hard copy book will remain at the top level where reading and information is concerned.

The contrasts are amazing when reflected upon.

The Internet, email, broadband, fax-to-email, etc are all making life much simpler. LinkedIn and Facebook are such powerful networking tools, and are really becoming a powerful complement to our traditional marketing efforts.

Those of us who actually work in this industry are realising even more benefits than others. What’ll be important for us to keep in mind, however, is a constant state of balance. Without balance we’re heading for trouble. With it we’ll keep everything in harmony.

Photo by Naystin on Flickr.com – under a Creative Commons licence.