digital nomad

11 Creative and free ways to declutter your office, and work from anywhere.

By Brad Beckstrom

I’ve always admired digital nomads. Those folks who can work from anywhere. They can get stuff done in a noisy seaside café in or a mountain cabin with no Internet access. They are extremely mobile, in fact, many of them can stay mobile all the time. The ability to travel light and run a small business or creative endeavor from a laptop takes less wizardry than you may think. You don’t have to be a vagabond or a digital nomad to benefit from the technology that is making this more possible than ever before.

So, for those of you who have not gotten the secret memo, you can work from anywhere, skip the commute and simplify your work environment to the point where you can grab it and go. All of the technology I am recommending here, I’ve used for years and believe it’s more secure than most office environments.

All of the applications are cloud-based, backed up, and protected by two step verification (defined below). They will all work on a Mac, PC, tablet, or smartphone and automatically sync n save. The setup also allows you to work with clients and other folks who still work with ancient versions of Microsoft Word, request that things be faxed or snail mailed (like certain Fortune 500 healthcare, banking and insurance providers), or try to move large video files and presentations around by email.

So, here’s the setup I recommend for anyone who’d like to work remotely. It will work well even if you never travel. It will allow you to go paperless, reduce your office footprint, and simplify your work environment. Most of the software listed below is free or free with very reasonable rates on cloud storage.

A Mac. I’ve used the same laptop for five years. I’ve upgraded the RAM on my 2010 MacBook Pro to keep up with modern software and newer operating systems that seem to be released every six months. I generally stay one cycle behind the current operating system. So, for instance, if Apple is releasing OSX 10.10, I’ll stay on 10.9 until the next release 10.11 etc. is announced, then upgrade. This allows everything to run smoothly as other providers upgrade for the latest OS while fixing bugs for the next one.