Five ways to get things done when you are out of the office

I know that most churches expect their staff to be “in” the office. But for most of the work that gets done in the church; leaders are working out of the office. Here are five ways to minister out of the office effectively,

1. Use instant messaging to get answers fast. If you have a full-time job outside of ministry, use IM to stay in touch during the day with the other leaders in your ministry. I use a combination of Skype, Yahoo Messenger and Gtalk. If your company or church blocks IM clients, sign up for Meebo where you can IM using your browser.
2. Use Backpack to organize your projects. I use and share Backpack pages whenever I have to organize a project. I can create lists, posts notes, upload files or images. Then I can either make the entire page public or just share with a few stakeholders. The most important part is that Backpack is available anywhere I have an Internet connection.
3. Use Skype to make cheap phone calls. If you’re sitting using your computer, why waste your mobile minutes when you can make a phone call to anywhere in North America for pennies. Until January 31 2007, get unlimited calling for $14.95.
4. Use Gmail for all your email. I used to think my domain name mattered in email; well, it just does not anymore. I have a half dozen or so email accounts, they all forward to my Gmail account. I have my mail anytime, anywhere I have a Internet connection. And if your worried about looking up your email when your offline, use Google Desktop and have it index all your e-mail for offline viewing.
5. Save files to Xdrive (an AOL product) instead of a USB drive or CD-ROM. Xdrive gives you 5GB of online storage. This is great when you have to share big files will others or if you need to transfer files between computers. I have used Box.net but it only gives my 1GB of free storage.

What tools to you use to work when out of the office (or if you don’t have an office).