8 Productivity Tools Road Warriors Need
Life on the road means freedom and travel, but also the need for a solid arsenal of apps, power packs, mobile hotspots, and other items to keep you productive. Here are 8 weapons you may want to add to your cache.
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For those who are often on the road, in the air, or otherwise working remotely, staying productive and connected to your coworkers, boss, and the larger world can be a challenge. But not if you have the right tools.
Here, we show you some collaboration apps to keep you organized and in touch with your team as well as some gadgets to help you get the job done no matter where you are in the world.
Working outside of the office comes with a unique set of challenges -- fighting for space near a power outlet at our favorite work café, or dialing down the screen brightness on our notebooks and smartphones to squeeze the last few minutes of power out of our devices before the battery runs out. This is why we've included portable external chargers for both notebooks and smaller mobile devices in our roundup.
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Also on the list are global WiFi hotspots, devices built to connect you to the web from wherever you are in the world. With ever-increasing mountains of data piling up around us, we've also included a portable hard drive, and keeping in mind the often rough and tumble life of luggage on the road, we've made sure to find a rugged drive that can handle a few bumps.
What you won't find on the list are smartphones, notebooks, and other mobile devices you're likely to already have with you. But it's worth mentioning that HP, Apple, and Asus all offer ultra-thin and lightweight notebooks that can reduce a lot of the bulk from your backpack.
And since the world seems to be getting noisier and nosier, we've included a bit of a luxury item for when you need to give your concentration -- and productivity -- a big boost.
Change the way you organize your personal and professional projects by taking notes, creating to-do lists, and saving things you find online into Evernote. The app will sync everything between your phone, tablet, and computer automatically. And since you can share content, it can be used as a collaboration tool. There are three editions -- the free basic version, Evernote Plus, for $3.99 per month, and Evernote Premium, which carries a $7.99 monthly price. It's available on iOS and Android.
Create, edit, and collaborate with others on documents from your iPhone, iPad, or Android device with the free Google Docs app. With Google Docs you can create new documents or edit any that were created on the web or on another device, share documents and work together with others in the same document at the same time, and open, edit, and save Microsoft Word documents.
There's nothing more frustrating than being low on smartphone juice and miles away from the closest outlet, but keeping a portable charger handy -- pictured is the lipstick-sized Anker PowerCore+, which is priced at $12.99 -- can free you from fear that your battery will run out.
You can't always count on WiFi everywhere you go in the world, which is why having a mobile WiFi hotspot like the GlocalMe G2 ($159), can help keep you connected anywhere around the globe. The GlocalMe offers network compatibility with a number of carrier networks in more than 100 countries worldwide.
With the amount of data being generated increasing on a daily basis, it's important to have plenty of storage -- and a drive that can handle some bumps and drops that often occur while in transit. The 2TB LaCie Rugged Mini ($139) is also rain-resistant and pressure-resistant. Additionally, it offers the speed of USB 3.0 as well as full backward compatibility with USB 2.0.
If you're thinking $299 is a lot of money to spend on headphones, you'd be right, but the Bose QuietComfort 25 noise cancelling headphones monitors the noise around you and cancels it out, helping you focus on what you want to hear -- whether it's your music, your calls, or simply peace and quiet.
If you're thinking $299 is a lot of money to spend on headphones, you'd be right, but the Bose QuietComfort 25 noise cancelling headphones monitors the noise around you and cancels it out, helping you focus on what you want to hear -- whether it's your music, your calls, or simply peace and quiet.
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