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Goodbye
Corporate Office, Hello Mobile Office When
I left my 9-5 corporate gig to pursue my freelance writing dream, I knew I had
to set up a home office-- but I never thought I’d need to set up another one
in my car. Truth
be told, organizing your home office to coordinate with your car is a smart
idea. With all the travel you do,
creating a system to integrate your home office with you while you are on the
road is in your best interest. My
mobile life started with purchasing the right laptop. Think wireless capabilities, so you can always check e-mail.
A lot of stores and cafes provide free wireless connections.
Hint, hint. Next,
I needed something to protect my laptop. I
wanted something sleek and stylish to fit in the messenger bag that I was intent
upon keeping. So instead of a chunky, masculine laptop case, I headed over to
TekSleeve (http://www.teksleeve.com),
where I purchased a custom-made sleeve made of sturdy pleather and a canvas-like
quilted material. Inside, the
sleeve offers a swishy nylon that allows me to slip my computer in and out of
the sleeve, and then into my bag, with ease. Because
I am constantly in transit, pitching ideas to advertising agencies and meeting
with clients, I invested in a handy GPS-like navigation program called Microsoft
Streets and Trips (CD-ROM
costs $29.99; with
GPS Locator: $102.99). It runs
right on my PC. I pop in the
address and town, and I’m instantly able to zoom in and out of a Hagstrom-like
map. Because I can write directions
better than following them, this program has proved instrumental as I trek
across the state of New Jersey. Best
thing is, you can get just about anywhere with the program, zooming into streets
even outside of the continental United States.
MapQuest.com is a thing of the past. Let
me say right here that a cell phone and a charger are a given, and keeping the
phone charged goes a long way when a talkative client wants to chat about his
latest project at 55-cents a minute. Even
though the bills may get lengthy, I make sure that I’m always reachable.
And it works for me, because I never miss a last-minute call for work. The
pockets behind my front seats are no longer used for CD storage.
One contains my fliers and brochures, and the other includes a batch of
resumes for the all-too-many times that I remember my portfolio and forget the
simple page of paper that sells me best. Ah,
yes… my portfolio. For those who
are going the agency copywriting route, this is absolutely essential.
It’s a simple half-inch binder right now, customized with inserts that
show my logo on the cover. Those
laminated inserts contain articles, press releases, brochures and more; and best
of all, they’re interchangeable. When
I’m pitching to write brochures, for example, I just open up my trusty
three-ring-binder and arrange the pages so my brochures are the first thing the
interviewer sees. It’s a little
way of selling myself-- and it’s working. The
portfolio doesn’t leave my car, because I never know when I’m on the road
and get a call to shoot off somewhere else.
When that happens, I have all my tools accessible to sell my services.
This includes the stash of business cards in my console, as well as a
dressy cardigan flopped in my backseat. Of
course, there is an ample makeup stash that stays in the car as well, because
sometimes a fresh brush of the hair and some lip gloss goes a long way to
portray a finished image. Finished
I am not, which was one of the plusses of taking the freelance plunge.
A self-proclaimed “jeans and a T-shirt” gal, I still enjoy time at
home writing in my cozies. But when I’m out on the road, making things happen,
I’m always prepared. Kristen Pasculli is a 26-year-old freelance writer living in New Jersey. When she’s not working out of her Ford Escape, she is working on her first memoir, sipping Starbucks’ chai, or watching MTV. |
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