5 Office Essentials Everyone Needs When Working from Home
You can go online and look up lists of essential items you might need when working from home (like I’ve done in the past), but I can honestly tell you that different things work for different people.
Having said that, here are my general suggestions for anyone working from home, with some advice for making it fit your own distinct personality and situation:
- The best laptop that works for you
I’ve looked at a few different lists of ‘Best Laptops for Working from Home,’ only to realize that the number #1 choice was actually my husband’s current laptop (which I hate using). So instead taking someone else’s advice (and when it comes to computers, everyone has an opinion), consider your own personal style and preferences when deciding which laptop would be best for you.
- Reliable smartphone
I chose to include the word ‘reliable’ here because I used my own iPhone 5 well past when I should have (including the last year of it’s life when it didn’t hold a charge, so I could only use it when plugged into my laptop or a portable battery); it probably wasn’t the best idea for someone whose business relies on being connected. If your career and livelihood depend on responding to texts, emails, and taking notes on your smartphone, splurge for the new model when you need one.
- Portable laptop speaker and/or headphones
You won’t always be able to control your environment, or the volume of YouTube tutorials or other videos you may need to watch (or in my case, student speech videos), so I recommend having a good, portable laptop speaker, and a few good pairs of headphones scattered around when you need them- in your home office, kitchen, purse, car, next to your bed, etc.
- A makeshift (or real) office
You’ll need some sort of quiet space (or a few) where you can take your work seriously. Over the past year I feel that I’ve turned a few random workspaces into offices- my kitchen, living room, actual office in my home, and some quiet corners of the local Panera and public library. If I didn’t feel that I could comfortably get some solid work done in these spots, the whole ‘work from home’ thing would be a disaster at this point.
- ‘Work’ clothes
Depending on your personality and situation, you might prefer to work in sweatpants and a big sweatshirt (like I do from time to time), or athleisure wear (which I upgraded to when I started feeling like a slob in my sweats), or maybe just a comfortable pair of jeans, a cardigan, and high end ballet flats (my trusty Michael Kors flats have never let me down) when working from the coffee shop.
Good luck to all you you location independent workers. Happy working!