I am not a light traveller in general, I tend to carry a lot to cater for all situations and this is particularly true with my work bag, as a long time contractor I always find it best to not rely on anything being present at a clients site and always carry everything you need for a full days work.
Lets start with the basics, After trying lots of rucksacks over the years LowePro has proved to be the most consistent and best padded (they are designed to keep camera lens’s safe which cost more than laptops), their only downside is the constant model change, so when ever your current bag wears out, you have to work out the current equivalent model. Looking at their site just now, if I was buying a new one it would be the Flipside 500 AW II, which is fractionally larger than the one I currently use but still good, in addition to the excellent padding they are very water resistant and stuffed with good pockets and can take a hell of a lot of weight 1, also in the picture is a Totes Eco x-tra strong which is a good work horse umbrella.
Next comes the Laptop(s), when I’m using my own laptop I favour the highest power 15inch ThinkPad that can be charged off USB-C that I can get (which seems to change from generation to generation), but currently I’m mainly using the clients laptop, and for my own work I’m finding a good android tablet + keyboard and mouse is doing just fine, for this you currently can’t beat Samsung, though their keyboards are heart attack expensive (so much so that I would move to an external keyboard and a solid case for the tablet next time)
For years I have proudly been a single monitor person (as a contractor on a laptop it made sense) but working remotely plus having to now manage a calendar from hell, made me move to multiple monitors, now we are back to a lot of office work I’m finding that I miss it, there are a lot of posh recommendations for USB monitors with fancy features but I just want a second monitor that looks the same and is at the same angle as my laptop, after trying a bunch of them I settled on the ThinkVision M14d 14inch, it is like the classic Thinkpad range, solid, well behaved and just does the job (in addition it comes with an excellent case and is light as a feather), So now when I have space I pack this as well (I would have killed for it back in the training and Salesforce days)
Now on to the tech accessories:
- For a Power Brick – Omni Mobile 25600 seems to handle all the needs I have, and is about as big as you can easily take on a plane, I also have the Omni 20+ 220v, but found it a bit of an overkill.
- Powercube Rewireable – One of the most useful bits of tech ever, a power block that means you don’t need to bring multiple travel adaptors with you and is useable for everyday work, I bring mine everywhere, and the fact that it uses a standard C14 socket 2, means that you can get a wide variety of cables and splitters for it.
- Odd Power Cables – As mentioned above, using the standard C14 connector means you can get adaptors and splitters, the one you can see in the picture is a C14 to C5 3
- Tech Pouch – Rather than a formal Tech bag I found a wash bag from Eagle creak as done me proud for years now.
- Decent USB Charger – So many of the apparently “amazing” usb chargers you see advertised on the Internet turn out to be rubbish, they share their full load poorly when multiple devices are plugged in or often even wont fast charge something on their own, the most consistent I have found is the Anker 543 Charger, which in addition is not built into a UK plug which gives me more flexibility.
- Compact UK power lead – Used mainly for the USB charger this is a nice compact foldable UK plug cable (they don’t seem to make the UK version any more)
- Headset – For my work headset I use a Plantronics voyager 5200, its solid and dependable, easy to get replacement ear tips for and to keep charged when you have 10 hours of meetings in a day, only unusual bit is that you don’t use the built in USB Dongle anymore as Bluetooth as improved to such an extent that it has surpassed Plantronics own standard.
- Power supply – huge power supply brick for clients laptop, boooo!
A ton of different cables and misc. adaptors, considering we are all using USB there still seems to be a lot of different sodding cables to carry. I’m not going to recommend brands and such but a few tips have stood me in good stead.
- Carry duplicates of the common ones
- If you are an Android person also carry a lightning cable and vs. versa, nothing makes friends faster than a charging cable in need.
- For USB-C cables the only ones you can REALLY trust for USB-C to USB-C activity are the thick ones with a 4K video rating, all others will have at least one failing (wont carry 100 watts, wont be recognised, can’t be used for external monitors etc etc), remember USB-C is just a connector format.
I favour trackballs over mice, both for shoulder health and for working on the move, so have used the Logitech trackball for the last 25 years, the current version of the ERGO M575 is the best yet and a good external case keeps it protected.
I always work with a physical notepad. It used to be a moleskin hard shell reporter notepad, but they stopped making that style and it turned out that I could actually get 100 custom made at a fraction of the cost that moleskin used to charge. So that’s what I did. I also use the Analog cards by Ugmonk for day to day task identification. Pen wise I always use a Paper Mate flex grip as its a solid workhorse of a pen.
Here’s where it gets a bit weird. I carry a desktop fan as I overheat in the normal 23 degrees of a standard office, for this I use an old server fan modified to run off USB, because they are far quieter and have far less vibrations than normal fans. You may overheat a lot in the office, but if you bring a fan that makes a hell of a noise, vibrates and annoys your clients and people around you, you are not making any friends.
External Keyboard wise, at home I use a full size Logitech MX keyboard, so it makes sense to keep with the same key feel, so I use the shorter MX Keys Mini, with a third party hard case, given the prices Samsung charge for their tablet keyboards and given the option to purchase again, I would purchase this to control the tablet as well, with the easy swap buttons for controlling multiple machines, it means I can use this with machines both at home and on the move.
Corporate Bits
For some reason no matter how posh and well setup the company is, they never have good conference facilities setup when it actually comes time to do a call or brain storm, so I bring a little kit in a bag with the following in it:
- PowerConf S3 Speakerphone – A good general purpose speaker and mic. set that can run either via bluetooth or USB off your phone or laptop.
- Pen set – A good pack of whiteboard pens, but given the nature of a lot of modern whiteboards, remember to swap at least one of them out for a white chalk pen.
- Wipe set – Often overlooked by facilities and always by people, you need something to clear off your work after the meeting, so a small whiteboard wiper, a cloth and most important a cleaning spray, I have never found a travel set for this but Whoosh do a 8ml screen cleaner refillable spray bottle that you can fill with white board cleaner, and its about the size of a pen so can go in the existing pen Pack.
In conclusion: as you can see, I pack for every eventuality, I have found that the slight ribbing you get where it looks as if you’re packing for the world’s end in an office is far outweighed by the satisfaction that clients get when you simply can cope with everything. Nothing makes you stop work. You just shrug and keep going, as well as carrying enough to help other people and keep the team going at a pinch.