We have no office in our home. Why not – because there is no need. Technology is so portable these days. Our previous house had an office with a desk on which sat our big old desktop pc. But once the desktop pc was replaced with a laptop, the desk became redundant. Why would we want to sit alone in a small room, when there was another phone point in the lounge. And once wireless technology arrived, we could use the laptop anywhere in the house or even in the garden.
I think we eventually sold the desk for less than £10 to make space when I was pregnant with our second child. I dread to think what it cost in the first place. We still have the other pieces of office furniture. The filing cabinet and cupboard are used for storage. And the office chair is in the playroom. The kids love spinning round on it and at least it means there is somewhere other than the floor for me to sit in there.
So now I mostly choose to either sit in the lounge or kitchen on my laptop. And in the summer, so long as I can find a spot without too much glare, I take it into the garden. When we go away for a weekend, I take my laptop with me. But I don’t have a smartphone. Perhaps I’ll get one when I next buy a new phone, but I don’t feel I’m missing out. My emails can wait until I get back home.
In the evenings after the kids are in bed I usually chill out in the lounge on my laptop, blogging, surfing or catching up on my emails, whilst my husband is watching tv or gaming on his iPad. Both being in the same room, gives us a chance to chat too. And if I have had a day off work, earlier in the day, I will have grabbed an odd 5 minutes here and there between chores on my laptop too.
I commute to work by car, not public transport. But if I was to use public transport more, I think a Kindle or similar would be very high on my shopping list, as I used to read loads of books when I did commute by train many years ago. I still think I would prefer to read rather than surf in that scenario.
As well as my husband’s iPad, both the children have an iPod Touch. We don’t have any of these three devices GPS enabled, but the kids love playing apps in the car. These have been very useful when we’ve been at the hospital for my son’s chemotherapy. I do borrow them then as we can guest onto the internet via the hospital’s connection. Especially useful as there is no mobile signal at the hospital unless you wander out into the far corner of the carpark, particularly if trying to coordinate meeting up with visitors at the hospital cafe.
As for other portable technology, I love my digital camera. So easy to snap a few pictures and then download them onto my laptop. Long gone are the days of having to send off a film cartridge and wait a few weeks to receive your photographs, by which time it was too late, if half your holiday photos weren’t as good as you hoped. And we also have a Sat Nav in the car, although we do share it between 2 cars.
This is my entry to the #PortableOffice competition being run by Currys.
Yet another blogging mummy!!! 