Working away from home – what’s in your bag? Part 7

Mark Braggins

It was Alan Williams who started off this What’s in Your Bag? series, so I’m pleased that today we have another man revealing what he carries when working away from home. Mark Braggins is a flexible worker and blogger about social media, technology, and public services.

This is what’s in Mark’s manbag for working away from home:

I work flexibly, by which I mean that sometimes I work in an office, sometimes at home, and sometimes on the move.

For many years I have been trying to reduce the need to print. I don’t drive a car, and hate lugging printed documents around, particularly when most of them end up being recycled afterwards.

I was experimenting with e-readers and tablet computers long before the iPad came along and – despite lots of effort – couldn’t sever the link between me and the office, or home printer.

• A couple of months after buying my first iPad in 2010, I finally achieved my goal: I’ve not printed anything since. I use it every day of the week, for note-taking, email, blogging, accessing my calendar, social media (mostly Twitter) and the web. I’ve written more about the way I use the iPad on my personal blog.
• I also use a ‘proper’ computer which I use for anything involving data. I’m a Mac fan, and carry a Macbook Air I can use the trackpad which is built-in to the Macbook, but I much prefer to use a wireless mouse. Most projectors don’t work with Macs, so I also carry a VGA adapter. I’ve included a USB storage stick and mobile broadband (from 3), but I don’t find I need to use either very much.
• By now, you can probably tell I’m an Apple fan and – surprise, surprise, my phone is an iPhone 4S. Because the iPhone battery isn’t great, I carry a charger (Pebble) which, whilst small, can easily recharge the phone for when I’m away for long periods. A ‘luxury’ iPhone accessory I use is Dot from Kogeto. Clipping the Dot on to the iPhone and launching the app turns it in to a 360° video recorder.
• The backpack I’ve chosen is from Incase. I was lucky enough to be given it as a birthday present from my partner. It was quite expensive, but is extremely light and versatile, with lots of space and several compartments.
• I generally wear a waterproof jacket, so haven’t counted that as being ‘in’ my bag. Because I travel a lot by public transport, I always carry waterproof trousers (Regatta) and a hat (Trekmates) wherever I go. They are both really light and fold down to practically nothing. In Winter time, I also include waterproof gloves (Sealskinz).

My last few items are included as a list below:
Waterproof cover (Karrimor) for backpack
Cotton shopping bag – a ‘freebie’ from the fantastic Future Everything conference
LED torch
Hand cream
Anti-bacterial gel
Bite & Sting relief pen (I’m allergic to wasp stings)
Plaster & pain killers (just in case)
Stylus (for the iPad)
Mousemat

An annotated version of Mark’s photo of his working away from home bag is available on Flickr – just run your cursor over the picture for a description of each item.

What’s in your bag when you’re working away from home? Send me a photo and a description of the contents of your mobile working bag and I’ll publish them here with a link to your site or blog.

Enjoyed this? Check out more home workers opening their bags in the What’s in Your Bag? series