The quicker I can get things done, the quicker I can go play Battleship with my son or blow bubbles with my daughter. I have to remind my wife this is called recharging – not goofing off.

I’d like to introduce you to my mobile office. From these two screens, I can create and store and deliver just about anything I need to get through my workday. While we mostly use our family’s iPad for reading, watching Netflix and playing games with the kids (NBA Jam notwithstanding), I use my iPhone all day to keep our business – and this blog – humming along.

I thought I’d quickly run down a few of the Apps I use to help our business.

Dragon Dictation – Siri on the new phone (I have the 4 – not the 4s) might do the same thing, I don’t know, but this app allows me to quickly record a message and it magically transcribes the message and then choose from a menu to send a text, an email, copy it to the clipboard and a couple other options. It works pretty well – once you understand how to speak slowly and annunciate. I’m looking forward to meeting Siri someday.

MeMail – One of those apps you think would be silly until you realize how much you use it. I’m always thinking of blog ideas or ideas for clients – this let’s me quickly send an email to myself with the touch of a couple buttons. I record something in Dragon, and I copy it over into MeMail, and it’s safe and sound. (At traffic lights only, of course.)

Call Ruby – We’re trying out a virtual receptionist – with delightful service and live phone answerers. No phone trees. I would like to clear cut all phone trees.

Zite – One of my reading apps. Think of it as a magazine that searches the web for topics and articles you like, and if you use it well, it improves according to your tastes over time. It also makes it very easy to save and share articles.

Instapaper – My favorite app. I’ve been a voracious reader since I was about three. This one collects and stores and makes it easy to share stories. It’s like reading a nice, clean eBook filled with stories. Once loading the stories, it stores them offline as well. Great for air travel.

Kindle – I prefer Kindle to iBooks. I’m not sure why. I have several (okay, several dozen) books on each app. I love how you can highlight, take notes. I wish it made it easier to share. I find myself using screen capture to email highlighted sections to people.

Evernote – Wait. No. THIS is my favorite app. It’s my virtual file cabinet, scratchpad, tickler file and so much more. It stores anything I put into it (photos, text, audio, documents) and it syncs it across all my devices. Blog post ideas, client meeting notes, audio from interviews. It’s all in here.

The Hit List - Our working to-do list. It, too, syncs across devices and also networks with everyone in our company.

Reeder – My RSS feed reader. Lovely – makes it very easy to sort and process stuff I want to read, save and share.

WordPress – I use this quite a bit. I occasionally type on it, but mostly I use it for comments and to make quick edits to posts either the next day or six weeks later.

DropVox – Very nifty little app that replaced the voice recorder app for me. While Dragon is good for short (30 seconds or less) bits of audio. This app has one touch recording to start – then syncs with a folder on dropbox. I’ve recorded a couple informal presentations this way – and had the audio sent off to be transcribed while I was still at the venue.

MailChimp – My email marketing company that sends out my Daily Blur each day. This app gives me quick access to analytics and my lists.

Mint (a web app) – Real-time website analytics for The Daily Blur

Analytics Pro – Google Analytics in a nice app. I use this to monitor my clients’ sites.

Carbonite – I use online backup storage. You do, too, of course. Right? RIGHT?!?! It’s only like having insurance for everything on your computers, you know. This little app gives me access to everything that’s backed up online, and I can send anything to anyone. Need that file from ’06 … give me a second … here you go (said Tim, while waiting in line at the grocery store).

Dropbox – More online storage – but more collaborative. Because I work with more than two dozen partners, twenty clients and more than a dozen vendors, I share a lot of stuff with lots of people. This lets me do it all on the go.

Bluetooth – Okay – does it drive anyone else crazy that you have to press, like, six buttons to turn bluetooth on and off? Using an app called Icon Project, I was able to build a shortcut to the bluetooth button and put it out on the home screen.

So those are my heavy hitters. I have another page with folders for things like travel and productivity and games … for my children, of course.

How about you? Anything I’m missing that you think might help?

New eBook Coming FRIDAY

Your Customers Like This – How To Deliver Shareworthy Service

I’ve got about 15,000 20,869 words – way more than I have had time to post here – collected in stories, emails, lessons and ways for you to implement a shareworthy service program in your organization. I’m turning it into a nice eBook with some worksheets and step-by-step instructions.

I was originally going to give it away for free, but my wife and I talked about it. We’ll make it available later this week to download for a donation of any amount (starting at $0.99) to Touchpoint Autism Services – the organization that first taught us to communicate with our son. We can never fully repay them, but this’ll be a little way to try to start. It’ll be available for download this Friday.

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1. How To Pack (A Lot) Lightly
2. Have a Mac? Get Cinch.

Contrary to popular belief amongst my fellow fanboys, Apple hasn’t gotten everything right … yet. I think their window management fairly well stinks (sometimes the plus button works – sometimes not – oh, and when you close something, you don’t really close something … huh?). Windows 7 evidently got this right, but it’s – to date – missing from Mac OSX.

A little $7 app from Irradiated Software solves most of these problems for me. Cinch lets you simply drag a window to either the left side or right side of screen and automatically re-sizes that window to half the screen. Drag that same window to the top, and it fills the screen.

I use it a billion times every day. I’ll set up two Finder windows to move files around. I’ll put my email on the left side and my to-do list on the right side. I’ll put this blog post (using MarsEdit) on one side and MarsEdit’s preview pane on the other.

Try it out for a few days before you buy. See if you don’t agree. Here’s a 30-second demonstration:

If you can’t see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.

And remember, if you don’t have an iPhone … then, you don’t have to be embarassed every time one of those pretentious, arrogant ads comes on television.

(And if you’re new to Mac and equally befuzzled by the red button not really closing things, learn the keyboard shortcuts: Command-W closes the file/window and Command-Q closes the current app.)

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Next to me sit two soft-sided Tom Bihn bags – the Tri-Star and the Empire Builder. Inside them, I’ve packed enough gear and clothing to outfit a small cadre of elite fighters in business casual wear for a week.

I am a budding travel nerd. This is my story.

The Tri-Star and The Empire Builder by Tom Bihn

I fit all this junk into these two bags. I bring enough to feel lulled into a false sense of home. I don’t bring too much so that I’d be required to check a bag.

Whenever possible, carry on. It’s not terribly difficult if you’re flying away for a 2-5 day business trip like this one I’m about to take.

THE GEAR

Nerd Alert

Laptop – I use my 13″ MacBook Air for writing and getting work done on the plane and in hotels. I also use it to lead my new clients through the slide decks I use in our two-day uncovery process. The Air is fast, light and perfect for travel. In my thirty years of using computers, it’s far and away my favorite.

iPad – My library, my newsrack, my video player, my game machine. I have a 16gig WiFi model that provides me with all the entertainment I need for the trip. For the past two weeks I’ve been storing up interesting-but-longer feature articles for a rainy day. Travel days are rainy days.

Bose QC2 Headphones – Noise-cancelling headphones are a dream-come-true on an airplane and, often, in cheaper hotels. They also make it easier for me to pop my ears.

The G USB-powered portable hard-drive – My iTunes library, iPhoto library and backups of essential folders are stored on here. It weighs next to nothing, and it doesn’t require an external power supply. This is one of my favorite purchases of the last five years.

Bose iPhone-compatible earbuds – These are great for talking on the phone (they have a mic) or for casual listening. They’re very comfortable in-ear monitors.

Eagle Creek Packing Sacks – Along the bottom of the photo, you’ll notice three similar black bags. I use these to keep my gear organized on the trip.

From left to right:

The smallest bag serves as my miscellaneous gear bag – presentation remote, mBox micro and iLok key for editing stuff on ProTools, USB Ethernet Adapter, USB mini extension cord, mini-display port to VGA adapter and a handful of little USB Flash Drives.

The middle bag holds my Zoom H2 Portable Recorder, stand, power cord, windsock and more. I don’t like to take a bunch of notes during uncovery meetings. With clients’ permission, I record meetings for further review.

The bag on the right holds all those white cords: power cords, adapter for England, extension cords, etc. Anything that powers anything work-related is pretty much in this bag. There’s also a mini power-strip that I typically carry but won’t use in England because I don’t want to risk fritzing any of my electronics.

All of this goes quite easily into the Empire Builder (the black bag), along with:

• a pair of Tom’s Shoes (slip-ons to walk around hotel room)
• a couple magazines (HVACR Business and Water Conditioning & Purification – yes, I am that exciting to sit next to on a plane)
• a book (Hugh MacLeod’s new book – Evil Plans (Having Fun On The Road To World Domination)
• a few file folders (my portable ‘inbox’ of client work I work on while traveling and a new folder for my new client in the UK)
• My toiletry bag – an Eagle Creek soft-sided Wallaby bag that’s perfect for travel
• Gum
• Business Cards
• A couple Luna energy bars
• Two little notebooks
• Bowie Knife
• Nunchucks
• Two micro-fiber cloths for cleaning screens, knife and nunchucks.

THE DUDS

Clothes and Stuff

I owe my inspiration for travel and packing to Kevin’s Practical Hacks site – a magnificent travel blog.

Most of these clothes are breaking in a new travel bag – the Tri-Star (the red bag). It’s almost absurdly well-reviewed, and since this bag serves as part of my de facto office at least ten days out of most months, I invested wisely.

The secret to travel? Layering and clothes that mix and match well. This layout is a representative sample of both.

At the top-left you can see two outer garments: a Nike Golf wind and rain jacket and a micro-fiber travel fleece. I pack the jacket and am currently wearing the fleece. It’s always a good idea to have a light fleece handy if you get chilly on an airplane.

Next to the outer wear is one pair of wrinkle-resitant khakis and a pair of blue jeans. That’s it – two pair of pants. If I should need a third, I’ll buy them. Remember – I’m coming home Friday. This isn’t a terribly long trip, and I don’t plan on doing any rolling in the mud (though I do have a Tide stick in my toiletry kit). I pack the khakis and wear the jeans on the plane.

Next – two white t-shirts, plus I’m wearing a third on the plane, and to the right of that a light, wool navy travel blazer and micro-fiber golf shirt. You can also make out the edge of my golf shoes that I’ll store in an Eagle Creek shoe bag. Inside those shoes will be a few pair of socks, a golf glove and an additional pair of nunchucks.

Moving clockwise and rounding out my travel wear, you’ll see two of the three wrinkle-resistant oxford shirts and some thin, black exercise pants in which I plan to do little exercise but plenty of working around my hotel room in the evening hours.

If you haven’t long-since clicked away from this post vowing never to return, I’ll happily share how I specifically pack all this stuff into the Tri-Star and offer up a more in-depth review of it as well upon my return.

I used to hate travel, but I’m learning to love it. How about you? And is there anything you absolutely cannot travel without? I’d love to hear about it.

They’re calling for my flight. I gotta run.

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This was too cool not to share … when was the last time a Kansas City Royal made the cover of ESPN?

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List of Completely Superficial Little Things I Miss by Tim Miles

1. Barenaked Ladies w/ Steven Page
2. New episodes of The West Wing
3. Jolly Roger pizza in Urbana, IL
4. Quisp cereal
5. Pilot Execugel pens
6. The Apple Extended Keyboard II
7. Intellivision

How about you? What do you hope makes a comeback (that totally won’t affect the outcome of world peace or anything)?

UPDATE: Here’s another – sending and receiving handwritten notes and letters in the US mail. I can do something about this one … half of it anyway.

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