Okey, so I have been on this island for two days. When I landed here on Sunday, I looked around…
So far it’s been an excellent place to visit, as I expected. And for work, I so far find it perfect. I though I wanted to show you quickly my work setup and how I practically keep my work setup productivity flow.
As for being one that truly loves the freedom I have in living a freelance and digital nomad lifestyle, I like to be an example for others. Follow my journey and lifestyle of following your passion, and I will show you what’s possible and what practical methods to use. Along the way, I love to document it all by writing, photos and film.
And for working this way, I’ll show you my current setup while on my trip to Iceland. Here’s my first post from the trip!
Necessary hardware and gadgets
I’ll make this post fairly short and just quickly show you what I use as for work setup while I’m traveling. I bet people have a pretty varied list of stuff, things, gadgets, and items. Some travel minimalistic, and some overload their baggage with geeky and maybe not-so-much needed stuff. I’m in between I think.
Since I’m an Apple lover (I love that stuff just work, and look good!) I got my 13-inch Mac laptop. I find this size perfect since it has a retina screen. So the resolution is 1680x1050px, which gives me screen-space also for film editing and working with images on the go. And I always remember to bring that power cord extension with me, plus a three port pad.
I also bring along a small external hard drive which I use for film editing and import of my photos from my camera. This is so to continue with media projects on my iMac when I get home. My Mac laptop has an SSD drive, which is a lot faster. But I like to be flexible with moving projects around.
For film and photos, I use two cameras on this trip. I use both a Nikon D300 for wide-angle shots and a new full-format (FX) Nikon D600, switching between a Sigma EX lens opening from F1.4. This allows a lot of light to come in. And also my 70-200mm FX lens with a gyro stabilizer. (A $2300,- piece of hardware!
With this camera, I also shoot high quality 1080p film. The Sigma EX lens is perfect for this. Though, this camera is not fully rigged for a film setup like I would prefer. But that would be too practical on this particular trip anyway.
I don’t have any priority for sound on this trip since I just planned for editing a short feature with music. IF I were to talk to someone, interview them or have at least a little bit better sound, I would record the sound using my iPhone and just a clapper to sync the sound with the film later in editing.
For quick shooting, I just use my iPhone 5S, but with a 0.30x Fish Eye lens on it. Gives pretty cool images on the go, at least in good light. These lenses for mobile phones are usually not so good. But this one looks okay in good daylight. Except for the outer edges, so I suggest to center-crop such images later if needed.
Apps and useful software, specifically while traveling
There are a few apps I just love and need. I do my writing in Ulysses usually. Sometimes in Alternote, a writing app for Evernote. Evernote integrates with what I think is the best content calendar for WordPress, CoSchedule. It integrates straight in with WordPress.
I like to do some writing along the way. Because one of the benefits we got as digital freedom hunters is the divine grace of being inspired while traveling. It’s the effect of being in motion, experiencing a lot of new scenery, people, and places.
For staying connected to cyberspace, I usually just use my iPhone connected to my Mac over 3G or 4G. To keep track of data use and control the cost, I use the TripMode app. This lets me control the apps that can access The Internet I don’t allow more data traffic than I need. Like for the Chrome browser, Airmail app, Ulysses for syncing my writing and a small selection of other apps I prefer to have stay connected. TripMode shows you exactly how much data you have used in either one session, per day and for each month.
I always block Dropbox while on mobile as this blows up my data-traffic use
If I connect to any public Wifi, I always use Cloak VPN (For Mac and iOS -good shit!) for added security and privacy. It’s not because I’m paranoid, but I know better! Keeping an encrypted tunnel limited the risk of being snooped, but it’s also about the responsibility of my customer and clients!
For my AWESOME virtual team around the world, I can’t be without Slack. I got all the guys on my team in one place, and there are so many cool integrations with other apps and systems we use that makes this like a hub. A node-app for keeping connected and feeding the different channels with updates from the integrations.
Now, with Slack, we can also do our calls right in the app. Works very well. But usually, when I have calls with my team, I use Appear.in, having highjacked a particular “room” name for my business. I don’t like Skype. It’s crap, and it creates an insane node-network. And, it’s Microsoft. Appear.in is amazing, needs no apps or software installations, it just runs straight in the browser. It’s also an encrypted connection running a direct connection to the other party.
Other useful mobile apps part of my daily use
I got a few apps on my iPhone that I use every day. Here’s my list:
- Camera+ for photos – Let’s me control light much better, and also the white-balance
- Snapseed – The best photo editing app I have found so far. Still use it.
- Viber – for free calls and messaging
- Slack -for staying in touch with my team
- Todoist -for smaller to-do’s and recurring checklists
- Asana -for our project management
Those are the most important apps related to productivity on the go. I got a shit-load of other apps on the phone, but that would be a story in itself.
Short post? Haha, I have a problem with stopping! Hope this was useful and gave you some new ideas for your workflow. I’m off to another adventure on this alien outpost, Iceland.