Ultimate Guide to WFH Gear
There are few items you should invest in if you are going to work from home. It’s easy to start off working from a cramped location in your garage, or perhaps you’re lucky enough to have a bonus room that you can commandeer during office hours. Regardless of where you decide to form your encampment, you should invest in a proper working space.
I’ll admit, I started off cobbling together an old writing desk, kitchen chair, and lamp, but after about 4 hours your back is throbbing, hands go numb, and your brain starts to look for any reason to escape this unique form of self-inflicted torture. This simply won’t do.
The first piece of gear i’m going to insist you consider is a well-designed office chair. (No, not the kind you can buy at Costco..) You need adequate support that will leave you feeling as fresh after 8 hours of working as when you started. Okay, maybe not that magical, but you should at least be able to hammer out an extended work sesh without reaching for the bottle of Ibuprofen.
There is really only one chair that I will ever own. Its made by a company named Humanscale and it is the only piece of furniture I took with me on my recent move. I prefer the Freedom Headrest model but feel free to explore the options. This company has won awards for design and a few hours spent in one of their chairs will prove to you that these accolades are truly merited.
It’s expensive, but you can customize each component for fit and finish to match your setup, or to minimize cost. Whatever you do, buy the advanced cushions. Now that you are sitting well, let’s talk about that make-shift card table you are pretending is a work surface.
Sit-stand desks come in many shapes and height options. For the average human, you’ll need a range between 28" on the low end and somewhere around 44–47" on the standing side to be comfortable and not injure yourself. I’ve included a link to one i purchased on Amazon made by a company called Flexispot. There’s nothing particularly magical about this brand, but having an electric motor, plenty of surface space, and memory buttons for your height settings are all helpful features to make your working hours suck less. So get a real desk and put your card table back in the garage where it belongs.
Monitor stands — any brand will do and most are universal but I have purchased several configurations from a company called Vivo on Amazon. They have options for 2, 3, 4 monitors depending on what you’re into. Honestly, 2 is fine for most office work. Get one and adjust your monitors so that the top of the monitor is even with your eye height while sitting. Your neck will thank me. Oh, and don’t forget an external mouse and keyboard if you’re a laptop person — there’s no excuse for using a laptop now that you have a real work surface. When you get fancy, you can add an external webcam, blue snowball mic, and an amazon USB speaker to make zoom calls much less miserable.
Ok, now you’re seated well and you can work for 8 hours without needing to make a chiropractic appointment. The last thing you must have is a good mattress and pillow. I’m serious. Don’t go another night sleeping on your tired, stained, spring-poking-you-all-night bed roll. This bed by a company called Purple and these pillows made by them as well, are absolutely crucial to being productive at home. No matter how well nestled you make your workspace, you need good rest to tackle the 6 day work week so invest in good sleep.
I’m curious what setup you have discovered. Please post, comment, share the gear that has changed your life now that WFH is more common. Thanks for reading this far and like, share, etc. with anyone who is complaining about their back/neck etc.
