Ah, the mobile lifestyle. So glamorous. So bohemian. So new agey and hip and now.

So, I spent last night sleeping on the concrete floor of a handicap bathroom. No one in my family is handicapped, but it was the largest unoccupied space in the bath house of the campground where we’re currently “living”, which allowed my entire family of four to huddle on the same floor together.

Technically, my husband and kids slept while I laid awake listening to the storm rage outside. My body has become too accustomed to memory foam to be able to sleep on a concrete floor, even with the hasty padding of a king-size comforter that was wrapped burrito style around us. The three of them were exhausted after the 1:30 am wake-up call that came from pounding rain, blinding lightning, and howling wind that actually shook the RV, exhausted enough to fall asleep once we’d relocated to the safest place I could think of when the watches turned to warnings on my iPhone’s weather app.
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As I watched my mother-in-law flip back and forth through notebook pages and loose sheets of paper trying to find the most updated version of her Christmas shopping list, I realized how much time and energy I’ve saved over the last year since going paperless. I’ve never considered myself an overly organized person, but I could access my holiday list in about 30 seconds and tell you exactly which gifts have been purchased and how much of my holiday budget is left - and I could do it from a crowded shopping mall if necessary. I can also pull up every single one of my business and personal receipts from 2011, each of which has been tagged according to type of expense and potential tax deduction.

You’ll have to excuse me if this sounds like bragging; I’m still a little mystified that I’ve managed to maintain an efficient filing system for several months in a row.
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I’m reading about Secret Santa drawings and office holiday parties, and I admit to being a little jealous. Yes, I get to roll out of bed at 9:30 in the morning. No, my lunch isn’t going to mysteriously disappear from the fridge. But working outside of the typical office environments also means I don’t have face to face interactions with co-workers. Ever.

I am by nature an autonomous worker, a trait that makes the mobile lifestyle a good fit for me, but occasionally I miss lunches with colleagues. I don’t miss meetings, necessarily, but I do miss having someone in my field readily available for brainstorming and feedback. My husband and children don’t make the best sounding boards for questions on marketing or target demographics.
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Living and working on the road full time means I have the freedom to work anywhere. It also means that I could find myself working anywhere, a flexibility that can be difficult to adjust to. As humans we crave the familiar, and a constantly changing workspace can easily interfere with productivity. However, I have found a few tricks to help make any space feel like my own.

Use my own computer.

I can’t imagine work on a shared computer. If you have to share your laptop with other members of your family, set up individual profiles so all of your settings can be personalized. Knowing exactly where everything is allows me to work faster and adds a level of consistency to an ever-changing work environment.
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