Life Challenges Can Create Havoc With Your Business: Accessing And Protecting Data During A Crisis

How prepared are you for a crisis?

Unexpected life challenges occur in many categories:

1. Fires
2. Floods
3. Earthquakes
   
4. Burglary
5. Accidents
6. Illness
7. Technology Failure
   

With the recent California fires and previous disasters throughout the world, it reminds me of just how vulnerable we are to environmental crises . These emergency circumstances not only affect our personal safety and our homes, but can also have devastating effects on our businesses.

One particular area of concern is loss of data for our business. Think of how it would be if you lost everything on your hard drive. Some of you may have already had this experience if your computer hard drive failed. If you did not have backup, you had a lot of pieces together to do of not only documents, but also contact information and perhaps an online calendar.

A few years ago I had the experience of my Outlook crashing due to too much data saved on the program. Something I didn't know about Outlook 2000 is that it has a limit of how much data it can hold. I had all my contacts, email, and calendar on Outlook without any backup. I felt paralyzed to do anything with my business. I was able to view current incoming mail on the web email available with my server, but could not view any past emails.

Fortunately, I was able to access the data with the help of their technical support team. I immediately went out to purchase a PDA so that I would be able to sync all my information from the computer to the handheld scheduling device. I also signed up with an online backup system so that all of my files would be backed up on a daily basis.

What about documents that you may have in hard copy or on your computer hard drive? Essential documents that you have only in hard copy should be scanned and saved. Having them only on your hard drive is not secure enough. You can have these available to you even if your computer crashes, is stolen, burned, flooded, etc. without even using a portable flash storage device that could also not be available.

Using Google Photo or one of the many photo storage sites, you can upload the digital files of your scanned documents for no cost. These can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet.

You can upload web pages, word, excel, power point, and text documents to Google Documents. You can set these so anyone can access and edit or keep them private. As a precautionary measure I've uploaded all of my web pages to the documents. There is also a feature that will update your document anytime you change something on your website. Pretty cool! Photos are not shown on the pages, however. You'll need to save these separately to Google Photo.

I like using Google mail for most of my correspondence so that I have access to all my current and past email. There is no limit to their storage size and they have an easy search tool to find any mail you need for reference. Service has no charge and if seeing Google ads next to your email doesn't bother you, it is a good choice. I often forward mail from my Outlook email account to Gmail so I have it available for reference no matter what.

Finally, for financial records, Quick Books' online option is a great way to have access to all of this information no matter where you are. There is a charge for this after your initial trial period. It also makes it possible for a virtual assistant or bookkeeper to have access to do work for you.

Putting some thought into all the aspects of your business that would be affected in a crisis situation can save you lots of frustration and money. Time and money for some of these services put into these preparations is a great investment toward your Healthy Bottom Line.

Unexpected Life Challenges? Productive Virtual Operation Of Your Business

Have you thought about what you would do if you had unexpected life challenges that pulled you away from your office? Thinking about this ahead of time and developing a contingency plan can prevent the panic of needing to take quick action to relocate.

Possible problems:

* Aging parents needing your support
* A medical condition that prevents you from getting to your usual office space
* Adult children needing support with their children
* A spouse or child hospitalized at a distance from your home

Let's look at what is required to have an efficient virtual office.

Internet Connection

When you get to your remote location, you'll need to investigate possibilities for connection. What I found when I was in the Seattle Children's Hospital environment was a room for parents that had several connected computers and hookups for laptops. There was also a computer in their family resources room.

Many libraries now have both computers and laptop wireless connections. Internet cafes may also be available somewhere nearby.

For phone connection, it's great to have an inexpensive phone card set to go. I purchased one at a popular warehouse store and can then recharge it by phone as it runs out of minutes. With that information available, you are never without a long distance connection. Cell service is not always available.

Quiet environment

If you need to have phone calls with clients, you'll need to figure out a way to create a quiet environment. This can be a challenge because what seems like a quiet spot can get noisy. I did find conference rooms in both the hospital and in Ronald McDonald house where I was able to do client calls.

You may also be able to use someone else's office or rent an office space temporarily.

Portable filing system

Get a small accordion file folder that can fit into your briefcase where you can keep paper files that are essential for you to have to run your business. You can also store office files in the Google mail program. These can also be made available for colleagues for editing and sharing.

Online accounting program

Quickbooks has an online version that you can easily access from any computer enabling you to keep up on your accounting no matter where you are.

Online calendar and contacts

Having an online calendar and contacts makes it easy to keep up with all need information. Printing out the schedule is a good idea since you could be caught without internet connection at some point. I also use an online mail program so that I have all its functionality no matter where I connect to the internet.

Along with these supports for working remotely, having an assistant or coworker who can take care of tasks locally will be a great help for you to keep things running smoothly. This requires some proactive preparation so that systems are in place ready to be activated.

Just as with disaster preparedness, taking steps to be ready for an unexpected life challenge will help you feel empowered to deal with all the various aspects of your life even when they are difficult.

My Blog In The News Again! - Updated GTD/Productivity Links List

I was totally blown away when I saw my blog listed so close to David Allen, the guru of all productivity!!

Here's the post:

04th Oct 2007

Organize IT

Advice On Organized and Productive Living Through Lifehacks and GTD

It’s been a while since I updated my list of GTD & productivity sites/blogs so today I will add some new sites for you to check out, update old URLs and move inactive sites so the list is up to date (this update brings the list to over 100 links). If you feel you have a site that primarily focuses on GTD and/or personal productivity and I haven’t included it on the list then please leave a comment and I will check it out.

Seeing as Priscilla Palmer’s personal development list was so popular and really boosted the community (especially for the smaller, less well known sites), if any of you want to post my GTD/productivity list on your sites that would be a good boost for our little productivity cult

The following are new sites and blogs on the list:

· 7P Productions
· Aim For Awesome
· David Allen @ Huffington Post
· Dumb Little Man

· Exuberant Productivity

· Goals Success
· Hack the Day
· Hacking Life
· John Place Online
· Life Coaches Blog
· Life Learning Today
· Life Reboot
· Monk At Work
· Open Loops
· Personal Development Blog
· Practical Personal Development
· Self Pursuit
· Shouting Match
· Simple Productivity Blog
· Productivity Zen
· The Executive Assistant’s Toolbox
· Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Work Week Blog
· Web Worker Daily
· Wise Bread

Updated GTD/Productivity Links List

Earlier I posted about being in Whitepaper.org's Personal Productivity Required Reading List: 100 Kick-butt Lifehacking Blogs

Lifehacking is all about finding ways to streamline and improve your life. These bloggers can help you do just that, offering clever tricks and tips for making your everyday life more effective. Here is some of the best ingenuity the Internet has to offer.

Check out my description, #84

Suzanne Holman writes about getting quality time, minimizing stress and avoiding perfectionism in order to achieve productivity.