What Tools Make Working at Home Easier?
All it used to take to satisfy an easygoing home worker was a couch without thrashed springs, a laptop that wouldn’t scorch delicate skin, and an instant cup of coffee capable of tricking your taste buds into believing it had been brewed by a proper grounds grinding coffee maker. Those were simpler times, but they were also less productive. They’re what caused a rise in chiropractor bills due to sore backs. Work at home lifestyles shouldn’t lead to crispy, frazzled laps. Bad backs, bad posture, bad wrist positions, even bad coffee making, the cumulative effect of these compromises ultimately undermines everything, not just productivity.
To make working at home easier, we’ve come up with all the tools you’ll need to take the sting out of an inadequately equipped remote employee setup. We’ll briefly touch upon personally themed issues, like interruptions from the family—you might be at home, but you’re not there to cook or clean. Someone else can make snack runs for the kids, vacuuming their messes. You’ve got work to do. First order of business then is a dedicated workspace.
Building the Dedicated Remote Office
A workspace that isn’t your couch or kitchen table is key. Set boundaries before productivity becomes a mess and profits suffer. Less family drama, more important report finished, that’s the vibe you’re after.
Branch Ergonomic Chair Pro
- Adjustable seat: Easily adjust the seat height and depth for the perfect ergonomic position.
- Ergonomic design: Experience optimum ergonomics with an adjustable seat, backrest, and armrests, plus smooth-rolling wheels for mobility.
- Modern style: A sleek, minimalist chair with contoured cushioning and eight adjustment points for superior support.
It’s a fabric-based back massaging wonder with outstanding design credentials and a talent for spine shaping comfort. Cushioned lumbar support is built in, as are 14 points of body cradling adjustment points. There’s even an optional head rest attachment, hugging the back of the head, taking the strain off of stiff necks. Arm rests, too, they’re ready for you when you need to lean back and take a break, their 5D sliding and telescoping supports adjusting to complement any body type. Designed by Jesse Menayan out of their San Francisco premises, the Branch Ergonomic Chair Pro tilts and reclines on command, its tensioning mechanism working like a charm to eliminate on-knees muttering when you’re seeking the perfect typing pose.
What resonated with the review team – Flocked Italian double mesh yarn, vegan leather, and regular plush leather finishes gave us sensations of decadent comfort. The granular adjustability of over a dozen points throughout the chair left us relaxed and revitalized, ready to read a batch of reports. It’s basically one of the best office chairs we’ve ever reviewed, and so much better than a couch covered in pet hair.
BenQ WiT e-Reading Desk Lamp
- BenQ e-Reading Desk Lamp utilizes OVAL-Light technology to illuminate a 35.4" x 26.7" (90cm x 68cm) wide area, which is wider than the average desk lamp, ensuring a minimum of 500 lux.
- Our Smart LED desk lamp uses a built-in ambient light sensor to automatically adjust the desktop brightness.
- In addition to two smart dimming modes, this lamp also offers manual adjustment functions, allowing you to tailor its light to your preference.
With the chair taken care of the next piece in the home working productivity jigsaw was the lamp on our desk. We wanted to find something that would help with remote work video editing. A regular bedside lamp was out, prone to flickering and random dimming as it could be. Our test squad eventually landed on the BenQ WiT e-Reading lamp, another fine-grained adjustability candidate for our remote office setup that oozed quality and dedicated functions. Importantly, the true-to-life white light wasn’t orange tinted or warmed by color temperature inaccuracies, nor was it cooled by a blue tint. Keeping color grading projects hue authentic, a CRI (Color Rendering Index) of 95 treated our eyes to pure whites. If the shade wasn’t just right, twin dimming modes and 13 levels of color temperature adjustment were conveniently at hand, responsively tweaked to accommodate individual tastes.
What resonated with the review team – For those concerned over such matters, this was a beautiful lamp. Its aesthetics make it look as if a Nordic engineer designed it, someone who works only in curves and elegant lines. More on the practical side, the slender ball and joint arm supporting the elongated lamp moved and locked with utmost precision, creating a wide beam of illumination that covered keyboard and desk papers, totally eliminating shadowy edges.
Anker 778 Thunderbolt Docking Station
- 12-in-1 Expansion
- Powered by Thunderbolt 4
- All-in-One Charging
Experienced like a trip through time, the left to right testing of the various ports and connectors installed on the Anker 778 Thunderbolt Docking Station really did radiate a timeline-like perspective on device hub history. On the far left, twin USB-A shaped 2.0 connectors waited for older cables. Next, two USB-A ports again, this time with 3.0 speed. Ethernet cables got a look-in at the next upcoming port, then it was on to the HDMI 2.1 port, built for conventional display technology. If that wasn’t up to the task at hand, two DisplayPort 1.4 connectors were prepped to plug in additional monitors. Stopping ugly nests of cables in a home office from tripping up young children—or being chewed by cats—we can’t imagine a much better 12-in-1 Thunderbolt capable docking station.
What resonated with the review team – Like we said, USB-C is the king here, positioned centrally and alone on the opposing side as two USB-C 3.2 ports, then there are the Thunderbolt twins, one upstream and the other downstream, again USB-C shaped, to keep Mac OS enthusiasts deeply satisfied. For remote workers with high-technology requirements, this office hub will charge everything and power monitors and peripherals, delivering the kind of signal bandwidth needed to power up the latest 4K displays.
Color imageCLASS MF656Cdw Small Business Printer
- Wireless 4-in-1 (print, scan, copy, fax)
- Print up to 22 pages per minute (bw / color, letter)
- Uses Toner 067 / 067 High Capacity Toner - high capacity toner options keep up with your printing needs and limit toner replacement interruptions
If the above home docking station takes care of messy cables, stopping Fido from chewing on them and Junior from tripping while playing Hide and Go Seek around them, the Color imageCLASS Cdw small business laser printer goes the proverbial extra mile. Its 4-in-1, aka all-in-one functions, are wireless. Granted, it’s a little tall, the 17.8 by 18.2 by 16.3-inch footprint means heading down to the furniture store to buy a small table, but there’s also the option to place it in a small, well-ventilated closet. No need to baby it when the print queue calls out for paper from your computer, the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) on top of the AIO printer pulls in sheets of paper when scanning is needed. For prints, a 250 sheet paper tray is on call to render long company reports or spreadsheets.
What resonated with the review team – The large 5-inch color touchscreen, angled conveniently up top was a thoughtful design feature, but it was for local printing. For our remote worker, she wanted to do her work from anywhere in the house, even the kitchen. This meant taking a moment to configure the Wi‐Fi 802.11b/g/n wireless. No problems were experienced during this notoriously tricky stage. Bonus discovery: Wi-Fi Direct is included, meaning no toss of a coin connectivity issues due to an overburdened router; we’d just connect the computer straight to the printer. Ultimately, for a midrange color laser printer with 1200 dpi print resolution, this was a solid entry into our remote office setup.
Essential Software Tools to Support Your Home Setup
Boost Productivity with the Right Digital Tools. Software can make or break work from home efficiency. From video conferencing and time management to accounting and invoicing, you need tools that equip you for success.
Atlasian Trello for Time Management
- Uncover the secrets of Trello’s core features, automation, and integrations to become a Trello power user
- Master Trello with practical advice, real-world examples, and workflows to improve task management
- Get in-depth knowledge of Trello to get it up and running within minutes and scale it for future needs
Whether enterprising entrepreneurs are optimizing workloads on their Etsy store or remote accounting professionals are managing deadlines from their home office, there’s one resource dedicated work from home business types often forget. We’re talking about time, having seen so many fledgling startups drive themselves into the ground because they were working all hours. Trello is designed to visually manage this invisible resource and optimize productivity. Features we use ourselves, energy flagging but determined to meet a deadline, range from calendar syncing planners to worker sharing team cards. You create the rough outline, Trello optimizes project goals and the roadmaps used to reach those goals, and commonly run tasks become automated. We use Trello, often and to great effect.
What resonated with the review team – For those who haven’t yet experience the power of Trello, it’s more than a safety net in the shape of a software tool. This free utility can easily shave hours off of your workflow by helping you stay organized, focused, and on track. For $10 a month, the premium plan, you can add AI time management and other business roadmap optimizers, including team collaboration addons, unlimited boards, and task digestible advanced checklists. Even without a premium account, you can expect inbox integration, customizable project boards, and enough time-saving templates to keep your business operations streamlined and waste free.
Mailchimp for Powerhouse E-Commerce Marketing
Office set up, maybe after adding a chunky desk to the furnishings, you sit and wait after pulling an espresso from your kitchen coffee maker. Only, that’s not how to make money. A marketing platform like Mailchimp puts you in charge, making your business proactive. With the e-commerce tool configured, you can create traffic-targeted email blitzes and monitor the results, double downing on one sales strategy while adjusting another. Online stores, Etsy included, benefit from sales campaigns that are managed by this type of software tool. Sure, mature marketing platforms tend to have their own messaging systems, but a dedicated tool has more to offer, much more when it comes to workflow automation.
What resonated with the review team – Features like automated emails and follow-ups had our testers wanting to open their own online stores. Then there was the ability to segment customer bases, using the recorded metrics to see if first time buyers were returning or return customers were staying loyal because of a product advertising strategy. If a product did hit home with our imaginary audience, we had the power to promote sales or send personalized recommendations. Advanced analytics, A/B testing, comparing finite changes in engagement, Mailchimp had a tool for them all. As for downsides? There weren’t many, aside from the shock of switching from a free account to a charge of between $13 and $20 a month after 14 days.
Zoom for Video Conferencing
Contacting head office for scheduling updates takes more than a quick phone call these days. Managers want to see the faces of their employees and gauge engagement, which sounds poetic when phrased like that. In business speak, the business has trusted a remote employee with a computer terminal and any other tool they need to get the job done. They want to ‘see’ that the work is getting handled. Zoom is the business video conferencing tool that these bosses choose, connecting multiple team members into a Brady Bunch like grid of faces. Document can be pulled up and shared, multiple device frameworks accommodated, from desktop to mobile, and ideas brainstormed on a virtual whiteboard.
What resonated with the review team – Basically, it’s simple to navigate and free to download. We often send email links to department heads, embedding a Zoom link that all can mouse over and open. The host of the meeting is then in charge, pulling up graphics, calling up a side-by-side mode and sharing a rough outline of a review for editorial approval. If the business in question isn’t being run from home, is a satellite computer workstation somewhere else in their country, or even internationally, Zoom is considered by many to be the go-to video conferencing solution.
Bonus Distraction Eliminating Tool
The unlocking of peak performance can’t be monitored from head office. No one wants to be micromanaged by a wireless camera and a boss wielding a virtual whip. Time to call in focus technology.
Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones for Noise Canceling
- Active Noise Cancellation: Premium noise canceling with Dual Noise Sensor technology
- Long Battery Life: Up to 30-hour battery life with quick charging (10 min charge for 5 hours of playback)(USB Type-C Cable included)
- Touch Sensor Controls: Pause play skip tracks, control volume, activate your voice assistant, and answer phone calls.
With premium noise isolation that’ll silence the noise of a toddler having a tantrum just as easily as they eliminate jet engine sound, the Sony WH-1000XM4 active noise canceling headphones are the perfect choice for a noisy home. If you’ve got kids, the touch sensor in the right cup puts music playlists on pause. Another touch can turn on full noise canceling or switch to ambient listening mode. And they’re wireless, just like the printer reviewed earlier. Next up, a bias towards premium sound means the LDAC over Bluetooth audio codec has been selected as the default wireless listening format. A talent for sipping power comes next, with the Sony headphones offering a 30 hour battery life. If business owners are worried about them powering off mid teen daughter against angry Mom argument, fear not they’ll keep going all day long.
What resonated with the review team – Even after business hours, we used device multipoint to pair the Bluetooth connection with another device. The promised High Definition sound and 360° surround audio reached our ears with clarity and crispness. Even the cup cushioning was on our side, eliminating discomfort and wear fatigue so that we could work away at home, generating profit so that our precious little ones could enjoy the comforts of life we’d given them. The Sound Connect app was downloaded to fine tune the EQ settings, then hands-free calling and virtual assistant integration had our reviewer of the day multitasking like crazy, home MacBook to printer and back again.
How to Work Smarter From Home!
Strangely enough, it’s not always technology that gives home workers a productivity edge. We found that an ergonomic chair, the Branch Ergonomic Chair Pro was our winner, couldn’t be beaten when it came to supporting long hours without debilitating back and neck pain. While it’s true that gadgets and apps can boost efficiency, comfort and posture directly impact energy levels. A solid, unmoving office desk can be added, plus a wrist pad. Add to that an ergonomic keyboard, the Logitech ERGO K860 a fine example of typing ergonomics done right, and stamina rises while aches and pains vanish.
Besides the Sony WH-1000XM4 active noise canceling headphones, our bonus work at home focus tool, we favored hardware that lightened the load. If printing report piles occupied the majority of our time, then the 22 ppm Color imageCLASS MF656Cdw small business printer wirelessly kept us in the game. If eye strain became an issue, the BenQ WiT e-Reading desk lamp brightened our workspace, chasing away weird color casts and shadows. Software for maximizing our office resources, including time, was just as invaluable. Otherwise, workloads turned into a messy tangle, a bit like the mess produced by cables that hadn’t been organized before introducing our Anker 778 Thunderbolt docking station. Using Trello and Mailchimp, we gave our test remote office structure, an executive-like framework that defied home distractions.
Only going to prove that it’s never a good idea to rely on a kitchen table and flickering bedside lamp as your makeshift office set up, it’s worth investing in the right tools, not only to to create a workspace that supports efficiency, but one that will put the spotlight firmly on your own well-being.
