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6 Must-Have Essentials to Work from Home Efficiently
Is your back aching? Are your wrists in revolt against your laptop? Working from home can put a real strain on your body, especially if you don’t have the proper set-up.
Lying in bed on a laptop might sound like a dream, but in reality, it’s back pain waiting to happen.
On top of that, it can make you feel disorganized, frazzled and inefficient if you don’t have the proper work set-up. Let’s remain calm and carry-on during this Coronavirus period with the 8 must-have essentials to WFH.
Your Marketing People has been working remotely since its inception, and we have ironed out all the kinks of working remotely and discovered all the equipment you need to work as productively as possible.
Double Monitors
Double Monitors, AKA Lifesavers as we like to call them, will help you in SO many ways:
- Show a perfect screen while sharing your screen. No messy desktops here.
- Have multiple documents open at the same time. You can view multiple tabs and documents to finish assignments faster.
- A monitor is usually larger than a laptop, so it’s easier to read and less strain on your eyes.
Headphones
Have a noisy kid or yappy pup? You’re going to need headphones to drown out the noise and sound crystal clear on your conference calls. Pick ones that feel comfortable on your earlobes and connect wirelessly, so you are free to get up and move around during a call.
Lane Burns, Account Manager at Your Marketing People, recommends, “I like airpods, since they drown out the noise.”
Communication Software
Stay connected with your team. Some great choices for easy communication are Slack, gchat, and Skype. All of which have free plans. You can then communicate with your team without having to jump on a time-draining call or draft up a long-formal email.
Project-Management Software
You’ll need to be super organized once you start working remotely. Project-Management software helps. Our favorite is Asana, but there is Basecamp, Trello, Airtable, and monday.com.
You will find that some colleagues like using project-management software and others do not. Everyone works differently. Train every employee on how to best use the project-management software (add this to your onboarding procedure) and place rewards to get employees to up their usage.
Why? You don’t want projects and tasks to be dropped or lost. Project-management software used efficiently will prevent this.
Conference Software
Now that nobody is in the office, you’re going to need a way to conduct meetings with everyone. There is a lot of great conference software out there. We use Zoom for Client Meetings and Uberconference as a back-up, since it’s free and easy to jump on.
If you use Zoom there is a free option, but be careful – there are time limits on your conferences and limit on the number of people able to join.
Before joining, you can disable the camera. But it’s great to have video calls because it helps everyone feel connected.
Other etiquettes of video conferencing:
- Be transparent with your clients, bosses, co-workers when you have meetings with kids or family in the background
- Mute yourself when not speaking on the phone. Even though you may think that there is no background noise, the microphones these days pick up noise that may disrupt the meetings
- Address the person you are asking a question to. It can be confusing if there are multiple people on the call and nobody is certain who you are asking.
Mouse, Keyboard, and Stand
Once you have a dual monitor, you’ll need a couple of items to accompany your purchase: mouse, keyboard, and laptop stand. We prefer wireless for mouse and keyboard to make it easier to use.
If you can set it all up, it’s great for your posture and to avoid having any health issues like carpal tunnel.
Those are the basics to really get you started working remotely. If you have even more questions, let us know! We’d be happy to give even more tips on how to work remotely.
