Article-to combat the recent spread of the Virus, many companies are urging their employees to leave the office and work from home. This may sound great in theory, because who doesn’t want to work in their pajamas and eat Cheerios 8 hours a day? However, in reality, not all houses or apartments are designed as a working environment. Yesterday, 5 things you need to make working from home a little more comfortable.
1. console
You may not have a standing desk at your daily work desk, but if you add one to your home office, these 8 hours will definitely be more enjoyable than leaning on your laptop on your couch.
Standing desks naturally allow you to get up and down from your chair, which can help you avoid back problems and even focus on the task at hand. We have reviewed several bar tables over the years and I personally like the ones that are designed to easily switch from standing to sitting without special tools or too much effort. As an example, the imovr ziplift standing desk is shown above. Check out some of our other standing desk reviews.
If you don’t have an existing desk, table or countertop as an office, you can buy your own desk like the knee-high Edge desk system. This desk can be folded down when not in use, making it perfect for small spaces.
If you really want to go beyond that, you can move your desk a little by connecting to a portable treadmill like the Versadesk ultra-thin treadmill or the Flexispot desk, which has a built-in exercise bike that even tracks your “distance” and can be used as a standing desk.
2. External Monitor
I have two Dell monitors that accompany my 15-inch Dell laptop on the desk that I work on at Cummins. Trying to reproduce similar configurations at home may not be possible due to space constraints, but you can add a smaller external monitor to your laptop, such as the lepow 15.6-inch USB-C display shown above. These types of monitors do not need an AC adapter occupying another wall outlet in your office, because you just plug them into a USB-C port on your laptop.
3. Power strip
About Electricity, add another computer, additional monitors, etc.to your home means you need more outlets, so consider an updated power strip that includes a surge protector like the Eve Energy Strip power strip pictured above. This particular power strip is also compatible with Apple HomeKit, which means that it can be controlled via Siri voice commands.
4. Amazon Echo or other smart speakers
I like to listen to music while I’m working and I usually use headphones so I don’t have to listen to my colleagues while I’m trying to focus on solving someone’s Matlab problem (yay!), but at home I prefer to play music in the background and keep my ears bud-free. One way to do this is to stream music from my phone to a Bluetooth speaker, but I’m slow and prefer to tell my speaker what it needs to play. My favorite smart speaker/voice assistant is Alexa and Amazon Echo Dot speaker. I love saying “Alexa is playing Old Dominion” and the melodies start to flow like magic. I also like being able to use several Echo speakers as an intercom to ask Jeanne to bring me a snack in the kitchen when I’m working downstairs. She’ll probably tell me to buy some myself, but sometimes I’m lucky!
5. office chair
Just as a beautiful desk is important, you also want a comfortable chair to make the long hours spent at the computer less painful for your lower back and back. The photo above is the Vanspace chair and you can read more about our office chairs for more ideas
