What's in my bag when I work away from home

#devlife #geek

My main work place is my home.
I have a gaming desk setup like in the image below.

But sometimes I work directly at the customer site or, more often, from my home in Italy, from an event, from an hotel, from everywhere.

At the beginning this was a problem because I didn't feel productive because every time I missed something to work in the best way.

But now I found my best travel configuration for my remote working days.

Always in my bag

My main device is my Microsoft Surface Book 2. I have a complicated relationship with this device :)
Sometimes I love it, sometimes I hate it. One of the best pro is the battery life (if you don't use Chrome with 250 open tabs) and it is also a very quick device when you work with Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code or other eating ram applications. On the other hand, sometimes, I have some problems with the graphic drivers, but from the last updates, it's more better.
The Surface Pen is perfect to take handwritten notes during a meeting, a live session or just for private stuff.
The Surface Headphones is becoming my favorite headphones. At the first impression I didn't like the hardware, but after few weeks I felt in love with his good noise canceling and some features like the autopause when you remove the headphones from your head. The battery life is good but it's not 15hours as promised, but almost 8 hours.
My iPad. It doesn't need any introduction. It's a normal iPad Air 2. I use it for Spotify (with the offline sync), Netflix and social networks alerts.
[Moleskine Smart Writing)[https://us.moleskine.com/en/smart-writing-system] is something new for me. You can write on real paper with a Moleskine smart pen and you can synchronize your notes with OneNote and others software. I use the app on my iPad.
Logitech MX Master is not the last product from Logitech but I love it so much. I have another notebook at home and with this mouse you can switch up to three devices without pair as new device every time. It doesn't have external battery but you can recharge it (white you are using it) with a simple USB port.
Post-it: no description. Just useful to remember everything or leave a note to someone.
Wireless presenter is good for meeting and sessions at events. It's not the best presenter in the market, but I use it since many years and it works very well. I plan to buy a new Logitech presenter as soon as possible.
USB Lan Adapter: sometimes the wireless signal is not good or is not accessible and you have to connect with the "old style" lan connection. Mandatory tool in your bag.
My Garmin 920xt is always on my wrist. As a triathlete is always a good time for a run or for a swim session when you are far from home.
USB 3.0 Hard Drive: you never know when you need to share something with your customer, friends, speakers or for an offline backup. Remember, when you work far from home, you don't know how it's the connection
Two 40000mAh Powerbanks. You need power for everything: iPad, phones, and you laptop. With 40000mAh you can charge the laptop via usb-c, 4 times your phones and 4 times your iPad.
a small usb light. It's useful when you want to work in the night without disturb other people or you want to read something in your bed before sleep.
an USB Microphone: it's always a good moment to record a podcast episode or you can use it to make a call with other people in the room.
USB-C to VGA/HDMI adapter. You can use it at a conference or you can use in your hotel room to use the TV as a second monitor.
cables, cables, cables: I have almost 3 USB to micro USB cables in my bag. They are useful to charge everything. I use long cables because sometimes you are not close to the power station.

Many of my gadget come from this store on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/node/2528932011.
The quality is good and the prices are really competitive.

Other tips

Don't forget to bring comfortable shoes with you. At conferences you walk a lot during the day and sometimes you go directly to a dinner after the a long day.
I also always have a bottle of water in my external bag pocket.