5 Helpful Additions to Your Home Office

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1. Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

A UPS is a continual energy source that provides emergency power when your main input source goes out. They provide near instant protection from power interruption, outages or surges, at least several minutes, allowing you to save data and shut down your devices.

They are frequently used to protect databases, sensitive work information, and general productivity, and have a large range of sizes and utility.

There are small and portable versions which are a great starter option. You’ll want to make sure you can at least plug your computer, monitor, and internet router into the UPS, allowing you to save your work in the case of a power problem. If your situation includes multiple employees, you’ll want to work at a UPS specified for multiple devices, to make sure it can handle the number of electronics you will need to have attached.

The important specifications for a UPS include: overall wattage it can handle, this will determine how many devices it can safeguard; the number and type of plugs that it has, not all models have ethernet ports and some plugs may not connect to backup battery power and may only serve as a surge protector; the size/portability factor, you may want a portable UPS, or just one that doesn’t take up a lot of space.

A UPS will always come with the option to buy an external or replacement battery. These will either add to the Watt capacity of your UPS or serve as fix in the case that one breaks. There are a lot of different UPS’ out there, so we’ve narrowed down the top brands and their best offerings to give you a starting point:

• https://www.apc.com/us/en/tools/ups_selector/ APC offers many different UPS’ and their selector will help you choose what’s right for your situation. There are a few extremely highly rated products from them listed here:

• APC Pro 1500VA is compact, powerful, and has a clear display. It’s got a 6’ power cable and an energy star rating, too!

• APC 600VA is probably the best budget pick for a UPS. It offers 5 battery backup plugs as well as a USB port for up to 4 hours of backup power.

• https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/tools/home-office-ups-selector/ Is another company making some of the best UPS batteries available on the market.

• CyberPower CP685AVRG AVR UPS Is their #1 offering and should have everything you need in a compact product.

• AC Power Bank, AIVANT 42000mAh 200W We’re including this UPS because it was made for travel and portability. If you’re going to be working all over the place or traveling out to meet clients at who-knows-where, this might be the product for you.

2. Headset

There are two great reasons for owning a good headset; it will make conference calls better and it can help mitigate those pesky noise-related distractions.

There are two major types of headset: wired and wireless. Wireless headphones work through a Bluetooth connection to your computer or other device, while wired ones will plug into audio jacks on your device. Each type has its pros and cons:

• Wired headsets will never lose connection, but may require an adapter to plug into your computer depending on what audio jacks you have available, some computers have inputs for sound and microphone, some will have a combined audio jack that takes both. They also act effectively as a leash- you can’t wander while you talk.
• Bluetooth headsets don’t need to be plugged in to your device, but they do need a connection. Sometimes bluetooth connections can drop or fail to sync properly, but this is usually a quick fix.Again, wireless headsets give you freedom of motion.

Here’s our rundown of good headsets that won’t break the bank (we had to lock up our inner audiophile to make this list reasonable!):

• https://www.headphone.com/collections/work is the place to go for comprehensive reviews on “work” class headphones. These options are great for tuning out the world around you and listening to you workspace playlist, but most aren’t made for video conferencing and don’t have a microphone option.

• https://www.plantronics.com/us/en/category/office-worker makes work headphones for teleconferencing that have well designed microphones. We specifically recommend their blackwire series, the 325 or 725 are top picks.

• https://www.jabra.com/business/office-headsets also offer superior office headsets with noise-canceling and top quality microphones. They offer several levels of headset, with varying levels of features and comfort.

3. Hard Drives and Storage

If you haven’t heard of an SSD- its refers to a type of harddrive storage. We won’t get too far into any of the techie stuff- but as the name implies solid state storage refers to storage that has no moving parts (ie no mechanical arm reading/writing your storage). Long story short this type of storage is faster, more stable, and requires less power to operate. This means you’re computer will be a better multitasker, more energy efficient, and even use it’s obnoxiously loud fan less. Chances are you’re probably already using SSD storage in one form or another, usb/Jump drives are actually SSD storage devices. If you’re you’re wondering why SSD isn’t the norm for hard drives/external storage devices- it’s because they’re a little bit pricey. You can definitely shop around and find some good deals- but an external SSD hard drive won’t come as cheap as a regular hard drive, however, if you’re storing any important information locally- like in Quickbooks desktop file for example, it’s a worthwhile investment to make for your business.

If you do decide that an SSD is right for you, check to see how much space your computer operating system takes up, then see how much space your accounting software takes up, add the two together and you should have the minimum size that you need your SSD to be!

Having extra or backup storage is also a must in the digital age. If you are storing data on your own hardware (not relying on cloud backup or storage) then you absolutely need a second storage device as protection. This backup can be any type of hard drive (or an SSD). You can choose to install this back up into your desktop pc if you have one, or you can keep it in its own case as a external backup.

An eternal backup can be more useful in cases when you need to transfer documents but cannot bring your laptop or entire desktop. It also means that you can take your backup out of your workspace in case of maintenance, vacations, or other concerns.

When buying backup storage, you should get the fastest (Hard Drive read/write speed) and largest capacity within your budget.

There are three top manufacturers in the market and we’ll link you to their product pages here:

• https://www.wdc.com/products.html If we had to pick one word to describe Western Digital, it would be reliable. They make internal, external, solid state, and cloud storage devices.

• https://www.seagate.com/consumer/ Seagate has been vying with Western Digital for the crown of market for, well, as long as I’ve been using computers (Ed note: so at least 22 years you nerd). They offer internal, external, solid state, and mac-ready storage. Seagate also offers various data backup and recovery plans.

• https://storage.toshiba.com/consumer-hdd Toshiba offers reliable hard and flash drives for backup and storage, with both internal and external options. Their drives are built for different types of computing, so looking into the details or asking for guidance from support will help you find the best product.

4. Paper Shredder

A paper shredder is an outright necessity for home offices and can provide a surprising source of stress relief. It’s the most reasonable way to destroy confidential information in document form.

While larger businesses might employ a shred service that picks up their discarded documents in a locked bin, you can start small and look at bin top shredders. If you decide they aren’t enough, there are commercial shredders for businesses that include waste storage too!

When you’re looking at shredders, you’ll want to consider: capacity, how many pages can it shred at once; duration, how long can it shred before it needs to cool down; how loud it is; how much shredded paper will it hold; and most importantly security, it should be at least cross-cut but micro-cutting is a better option.

The more you use your shredder, the more you should consider oiling it. Why yes, they do make oil especially for paper shredders, and it keeps them running both quickly and quietly.

There are a lot of shredders on the market, but these are the most convenient and best:

• Amazon Basics offer multiple shredders form the very basic to the somewhat fancy. Don’t their lowest level shredder, get something with at least an 8 page capacity to avoid jams. Their 12 sheet, high security shredder would be our recommended pick.

• Fellowes makes higher quality shredders with more features, capacity, and larger waste bins. If the first link has nothing that interests you, you should find what you’re looking for with Fellowes.

5. A scale

Our office manager absolutely hates going the post office. From long lines to stressful deadlines (we know you locked your doors at 4:59!), post office trips add an extra layer of stress to our days.

A postage scale allows you to weigh and pay for you mailing/package shipping costs on your from the USPS website.You’ll save time- no more waiting in lines at the post office. You can buy and print your own postage from your home office- and even schedule pick ups for packages.

If you’re mailing is high volume you might even consider investing in a postage meter- a scale that can also stamp postage directly on the envelope. You’ll save on shipping costs as the Postal Service will usually give a discount for metered postage.

There are a lot of affordable options for scales out there, so here’s our round-up on the best on the market:

• http://www.weighmax.com/products/postal-scales-1.html Weighmax has 13 affordable different scales that vary in features and accuracy, you’re sure to find one that works for you here!

• Accutek Scales on Amazon Accutek is an industrial manufacturer that makes wide range of products. Their postage scales are easiest to find via amazon, and we have a list of their best selling ones behind the link.

• If none of these scales really appeal you, you can look for kitchen scales that have a weight limit that goes up to at least several pounds. Also be sure the scale allows you to “tare” the starting weight so that your readings are accurate!