The Complete Work-From-Home Starter Setup

The first purchase because it changes how you sound to everyone who decides things about you. Laptop microphones pick up the room, the fan and your typing. A light headset with a real mic fixes all three, and at 185 grams you can wear it through a full shift. Our full headset guide has the heavier-duty options for six-hour call days.

Raise the chair until your elbows meet the desk, and your feet will usually leave the floor. This costs almost nothing and removes the load that would otherwise sit in your lower back all day. It is the highest return per dollar of anything in The Remote Office.

A laptop on a desk sits a foot below eye level, and your neck pays for that by mid-afternoon. Lifting the screen is the difference between a headache at 3pm and no headache. Pair it with any external keyboard and mouse — the laptop keyboard becomes unreachable once the screen is at the right height, and that is intended.

One screen for the system you work in, one for everything else. For chart review, claims, coding or scheduling this is where productivity stops being a slogan and becomes measurable. Twenty-four inches at 1080p is the sensible size for a bedroom desk; our monitor guide covers the larger options if the desk allows.

The chair goes last because until you have worked a month you do not know how you sit, how long, or whether you will stand part of the day. Once you do know, buy properly and once — adjustable arms, adjustable lumbar, and a warranty measured in years. Our chair guide covers the cheaper and the more expensive ends of this.