Well here we all are, figuring things out as we jumble through home offices, remote work days, and choppy conference calls. The past few weeks of working our way through quarantine and COVID closures has many of us bleary-eyed and moody.

We count ourselves among the most fortunate to have already been working from our home offices frequently, but there have been adjustments for our team nonetheless. It’s one thing to work from home, it’s another thing to work from home while the whole world is learning to work from home with you.

To that end, we lovingly present to you, our list of Favorite Things for getting through this odd season of life and business. Every item included has been one that’s proven useful all the more as we and the world around us learn to “telecommute”. Also, if you don’t mind, click the photo to purchase on Amazon; if you do, we might get a small cut of the cost. Thanks, and enjoy!

Let’s start at the beginning, with All Things Coffee, Amen:

I know to some of you this is already starting off on the wrong foot, but allow me to introduce you to my favorite decaf, and allow me to explain.

I’ve been starting my work days off (along with my husband) at 5am to get in some uninterrupted work before two little sets of eyes open and begin the days chaos. Considering I wake up dehydrated and foggy, the last thing I need is caffeine to give me an early morning headache. Enter this amazing blend of Decaf… Prime eligible thankyouJesus. I find that this decaf somehow gives me the boost I expect from coffee, probably from nearly a decade of caffeine in the mornings training my body to wake up. Either way, it’s getting the job done, it’s not giving me a headache, and it makes our office smell ahhh-mazing. Enjoy! (For those of you that neeeeed caf- here’s my other favorite.)

The last coffee pot you’ll buy.

My friend Diane owns the local Dunn Brothers Coffee here in my hometown. Were I not paranoid about leaving the house, her coffee would be linked above, but alas… I’m a quarantine pro. I digress- Diane was the friend who I turned to when I needed to invest in a new coffee pot, and this little guy was one of her recommendations. She also recommended this one which I sometimes wish I had bought for the sacred act of keeping the coffee warm for longer. That said, the one we have is SO PERFECT, has that “pour over” taste without all the work and the wait, and just looks so pretty anywhere. Go forth, and caffeinate… (or decaffeinate per above).

Waking up when you’d rather snooze.

I have now purchased two of these; one for me and one for Hilary, our admin. I purchased this for my husband several months ago when he was starting to wake up earlier to work out. I didn’t want to hear that blessed alarm noise one. more. time, so I turned to Google for sunrise alarms. It sits on his nightstand, shines in his face at 4am, and doesn’t wake me up unless it gets to full brightness, which usually doesn’t happen. Now that we’re both working from home, my husband lets the light get to “full brightness” so that I can wake up easily too. Had I known how handy this thing would have been a few months ago when I bought it, I probably would have spent money on the more expensive brand as this model is a little “buggy” (we’ve had an occasion where it just didn’t go off, then once where it went off when appeared to be set to off), but for the price it’s been a great purchase.

As for actual work things…

A reusable, half-digital device, half-notebook.

I’ve posted about this guy before, but I do adore my Rocketbook Wave notebook. It’s a handy little notebook you can use an actual pen on, take a quick pic of your pages (one at a time or all in bulk) to create digitized files (.jpeg, .pdf, etc). If you like the ease of digital files but hate (raises hand) using a digital “pen”, this is the solution for you. I bought the one you can use Frixion Erasable Pens with (trust me, these are not your 8th grade erasable ink pens), so I can reuse this notebook by sticking it the microwave to find fresh, clean pages for years to come. Boom. Digital and paper can get along after all. (If you don’t dig reusable, here’s another good option.)

Rocketbook Beacons for converting your white board to a PDF to share with your team.

Little magic reusable cling… things…. these little guys allow you to “frame” any whiteboard, snap a quick pic with the app, and send it easily to… well.. anyone or anything. Send it to your team, save it to a zoom meeting screenshare, put it on your desktop to refer to later. These little guys have come in handy in so many ways. Click the photo for the single pack, here for a pack of three beacons, and here for a pack of five (should you need a few for your teammates/clients).

Please Lord, let us stop holding our thin rectangle phones against our faces with our shoulders…

If you don’t have a headset yet… get one NOW! Just do it. Please. I have the AirPods and I love them. The sound is good, you can set them up on an iPhone in 2 seconds, and they don’t hurt in any way. I’m picky about that last thing… if they hurt I don’t wear them.
If you don’t have i-products, here’s the other headset I have and love it. I actually prefer the Plantronics headset in many ways, but I sacrificed it to the cause of my husband’s neck, so it technically doesn’t belong to me anymore.

A desk lamp that doesn’t suck.

Believe me, if I could really have it all in a desk lamp, it would be pretty, antique-y, foldable, storable, and smart. Alas, I couldn’t find one that looked like Joanna Gaines would have it in her office, so I went for practical. I regret nothing. This guy has a handy “sleep timer” which is great for late nights “at the office” when you want to keep the rest of the house dark and not hit your shins on the way to bed. It’s the little things, my friends. This was my second choice, and I do wish I had the “rotating lamp” feature on mine.

A few miscellaneous items for your sanity/ convenience:

Something to make you actually sort of enjoy your imperfect beautiful, work-from-home set up.

I already own Myquillyn Smith’s most recent book, Cozy Minimalist Home, which I adored, so I recently decided to snag this one as well. It came at the perfect time, arriving on my doorstep a few days into quarantine, helping me to remember that it’s okay for things to be temporary. It’s a great reminder for times like these, working at the kitchen table, the house a mess, home offices overthrown with fold out tables and the random extra chair you had in the corner serving as a desk chair. This has little to do with work, but somehow everything to do with working right now. Enjoy.

A music box/ weather announcer/ intercom/ general helpful resource machine.

Did anyone else have those in-house intercoms from the 80’s? No? Just me? Regardless, the Echo Show has been a handy little “announcer” for my husband and I to communicate with each other without being one more ping on our phones. We announce things from one Alexa to the other with our own voices, which gets pretty cute when the kids start learning how to announce that lunch is ready. Not only that, but of course, Alexa plays our favorite background music while we work at 5am (see above), helps us with timers, weather, plays a quick snippet of a show when the littles sneak in during a call, etc. An all around useful device for this season at home.

Just gonna leave these right here:

Hoping you found something helpful to support your remote worker journey! What are your favorite tools and items for working from home? Comment below and share the wealth!

From our team to yours, stay well (physically and mentally), and stay in touch!