How to Make Working Outside Work for You

The desire comes around at a certain time of year, when it's just starting to get nice, when the office workers of America and beyond have been cooped up for far too long in the too-cold (or too-hot, depending on who's controlling the thermostat) confines of their cubicles. Working outside! Can we work outside today? It is sunny and bright and fresh-aired and glorious—in the 70s in New York, even warmer elsewhere—and we just want to break free, our laptops slung in our totes, and head to a nearby park or beach or rooftop.

Later in the season it will be too hot; we'll need the air-conditioned cool of the indoors to concentrate, but for now, it's perfect. And it does sound ideal, a dream within a dream (minus, maybe, the "working" part, but a person's gotta eat, right?). Still, is working outside ever really possible, or is it but a pipe dream? What do you need to work—really work—outside? I investigated. 

Don't Set Your Sights Too High. 

Later in the summer, or when you take a vacation, there will come the time that you travel to a far-away beach locale, and you have in the back of your mind the "idea" that you will get a little work done while you're there, sipping daiquiris and staring off into the blue waves. You should really quash this idea, don't even allow it to creep into your head, because it's ruining your vacation. If you really, really must do this, sit under an umbrella, and bring the laptop with the half-dead battery so you can only do about 25 minutes of work before, of necessity, falling asleep or reading that new novel you are so excited about.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire.

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