What Makes a Portable Home Office?
A lot of us have never worked from home so we’ve never had a dedicated space for it. But now we have to. At work, we enjoy certain flexibility and largesse when it comes to equipment. Based on your requirement, you might have a large desktop monitor and even multiple monitors so you can work with a large screen real estate.
This luxury might be difficult to come by at home. If you have a dedicated home office and the necessary funds, you can outfit a full scale workstation. If you don’t have a home office and work from your living room coffee table, or dining table, you need more flexible, collapsible equipment.
We have previously talked about the home office setup, but let’s take it up a notch and talk about a different kind of home office.
Furniture brands often talk about having collapsible elements that can be tucked away when not required. So why shouldn’t that apply to your workstation?
Let’s look at the ultimate portable workstation tools:
A laptop that knows what it’s doing:
Yes, this depends on quite a lot on your work. But the basics are important to talk about. Since this is a portable setup you don’t want to be bogged down with an additional keyboard or mouse. So, pick a laptop that has a decent keyboard, and a good trackpad. While the ports on the laptop are important, with you being at home any way you can access your adapters easily. So, opt for a laptop with lesser ports and more battery if you must make a compromise.
An external monitor:
Now, this is the opposite of portability. But that’s because you’re thinking about big 21 inch monitors that need constant power. There are portable options in this category. Use a tablet! Certain apps let you use one as an external monitor without a cable. But cables are in our name so we are here to tell you the cabled options are plenty more, especially if you don’t want to pay for software. The cable after all can be repurposed, unlike the software.
Apart from using this monitor as an external monitor, you can use it as a screen for your game console or your portable gaming console like a Nintendo Switch. Plug in your right audio video cables and take your games to a much larger screen without being confined to a certain space in your house. This is unbelievably convenient if you share your house with anyone and they are also working from home.
Wireless mouse or wireless anything:
Touchpads can be really hard to use sometimes especially if you are a multi-tasker. So, maybe it’s time to ditch that old touchpad and move to a wireless mouse. This will not only help you with your productivity but you will also thank yourself for doing this since you can work more efficiently, especially if you are doing any kind of design work.
Moreover, if you are a little bit traditional and want a whole set up including monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. then make sure that they are wireless and portable for you to make an easy switch between your dedicated workspace to a more comfortable space. Also, this will give you a chance to invest in a keyboard and mouse that are actually comfortable for you rather than the ones you got with the setup.
Accessories:
A power bank is one of the most underrated accessories for all gadgets. While you can easily charge your devices whenever you want, sometimes if you are on a conference call and need to power up your phone in the middle of it, a power bank lets you do that while you take a stroll in your backyard. With all of us cooped up in the house all day, being able to stroll while you take work calls can be really good for you.
Cables:
Your cable pouch that you carried everywhere is invaluable in the house too. As mentioned before, a cabled monitor is a much better idea. If your tablet has a mini HDMI port, you can use an HDMI adapter with your HDMI cable from the TV. Told you the cable can be reused.
Headphones and speakers:
Music is an integral part of my workspace. Those creative juices flow easily with the beats and bass in my ears. And I am sure it’s the same for you. So make sure to invest in a good pair of headphones or you can also have a smart assistant that does the work of a speaker as well as takes some of the burdens of menial tasks off of your shoulders. Going with wired headphones might be a better idea if you need one less thing to charge and don’t want to repeatedly pair it with your multiple devices.
Also, good headphones are a blessing for people who are on calls the whole day. They don’t have to fear running out of power in the middle of an important call.
A home office doesn’t need to be a luxury that requires a special room. The main purpose of one is to get the work done. And if your gadgets are more or less portable, this office can go with you anywhere from the living room couch to the backyard.
Let us know how we can help you get the right accessories and cables for one here, and browse our exhaustive catalog for the right cable variant of everything under the sun.
