Office gadgets can spice up the otherwise sometimes boring home office life of a consultant. I’ve been using computers since I was seven years old, so I’ve always been a bit of a gadget geek. (A friend nearly fainted yesterday when I spoke to her on the phone and said that I called her before checking my email. Shocking.) I’ve never been over the top about my office gadgets, but I do have them. I personally believe Microsoft Excel is the best thing ever invented, antibiotics not withstanding! And I’ve believed that since before I decided to become a consultant.
My office gadgets include:
- cordless phone with caller ID
- Acer Aspire 5000 laptop
- generic computer server for hosting email, websites and extra diskspace
- DVD burner
- DV video camera so I can record myself doing public speaking and critique it later
- multifunction printer/fax/copier/scanner — I’d like to replace this soon, since I’m really unhappy with my Brother 4420C
- digital camera for taking photos for my other business site
- financial calculator for calculating consulting fees, return on investment, and anything else that moves me
- Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel
- C64 joystick video game, a recreational office gadget for when I want to relive my youth and take a break from work
- optical mouse, which I must constantly hide from my toddler, who puts it on the floor with his cars and says, "Beep! Beep!".
My next office gadgets:
I’m currently shopping for a 32" flat screen LCD HDTV, so I can watch business shows, check the news for client media hits, play back DVDs of my public speaking and have some background noise. (And, no, I won’t claim this 100% as a tax write off, especially not until I’ve talked with my accountant!)
As you can see, I don’t have tons of office gadgets and gizmos. Those are pretty standard, even for people who aren’t into gadgets, office or otherwise. I’m interested in hearing what office gadgets you can’t live with out. Feel free to leave your info in the comments — or blog about this post, link to it, and I’ll include you in a link roundup. No need to stick to high tech gadgets! I was pleasantly surprised by this encyclopedia entry that says a gizmo need not have moving parts. So feel free to tell me about your gizmos, too, even this Gizmo.
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Office gadgets I can’t live without.
Suddenly all I can think of are Inspector Gadget lines, like “Go go Gadget go!”
I like my Blackberry. I need my Blackberry.
Oh, and my cell phone. Don’t you have a cell phone?!
Yes. I have a cell phone. But it doesn’t always reside in my office, so I didn’t think to include it.
Du-du-du-du-du Inspector Gadget….
I’d be lost without Palm Pilot. Good ol’ Palmie is my secretary, beeping to tell me two start wrapping up a piano lesson because the next student is due soon and when to do bookkeeping (shudder). All my students’ info (right down to allergies and when their next piano tuning is due) is also in Palmie. My growing To Do list has everything from “research and revamp student reward program” to all the anime I want to buy.
Let’s see, other gadgets I can’t live without are my multifunction machine, telephone and laptop.
I like to have at least on 2G jumpdrive and a good set of noise canceling headphones to block ambient noise when working in airports etc. I guess both things fall into the “not always in my office” category. thanks for the site, it’s very helpful.
Macs are virtually 40% profit these days thanks to the demand. Apple’s market share for computers has tripled within the past 10 years, and has grown particularly fast since the iPhone launched.
Laptop stand and full size keyboard (to improve on the poor ergonomics of the laptop). USB hub to plug it into.
Good pens and notebooks.
Adobe Acrobat, though I need to update it, which means I may go with a competitor, for editing PDFs, compressing scanned documents, compiling PDF, etc.