If Hurricane Sandy taught us anything, it’s how to plan for power outages and how best to stay productive without electricity. Businesses have often been dealt the blow of losing business hours thanks to power outages. These losses end up accumulating and costing quite a bit, and for that reason alone companies need to prepare themselves for these kinds of situations.
Stock Up
Keep up the stock of flashlights and batteries, and if you live in a city where rolling power outages happen more often than not, it’s good to consider extra battery packs for laptops and mobile phones. Home generators are excellent for these kinds of incidents. They may be expensive first off, but in case of electricity shutting down, they certainly make up for losing money.
Maximise Battery
Only use the internet when you absolutely have to, to preserve battery life during unplanned power outages. Any applications that use battery power should also be turned off to ensure you maximise battery life. There are solar-powered charges which can be pretty expensive, but are perfect for those moments where your battery has run out, you have an urgent deadline, and there’s a solution waiting in your cupboard.
Contact List
This is essential for businesses that generally work from an office but find staff having to work from home. Direct contact lists so you can immediately contact staff or colleagues, is essential when trying to conduct business. People have so many social networks profiles and different emails, as well as three or four different contact number. Determine with colleagues exactly what forms of medium they are contactable on during the power outages.
Download Cloud
Dropbox and Google Docs are great file-sharing applications. Download Cloud as it allows you to upload files and access them on any device and from wherever you are. If your laptop battery dies then you can easily access Cloud with your tablet. You can shares files with other who are also working remotely in power outages. Even if you’re not dealing with a power outage, the Cloud application is great for a backup.
As power outages become more common, most companies and freelancers have put these measures in place, however for those who don’t often work remotely; these tips make life a lot easier for you when you’ve got an unhappy boss on your hands and a client who wants their stuff now, never mind the power outages.
As a prolific freelance writer Vida Denning has encountered her fair share of power outages, the longest one being while working in Atlanta office space.