Of you go to work and oh no, you forget an essential item in all the hurry! Pack your work bag with some essential items so you won’t find yourself in an annoying situation at work or on your commute.
Next to the basic items that everyone should always carry with them, like your wallet, your ID, your driver’s license, and your phone, you need more things in your bag, which are what I call work bag essentials.
Work bag essentials are items you shouldn’t leave your house without if you’re going to work. I’m mostly talking about things you need for office jobs, but they apply to other jobs too.
It’s good practice to keep these work bag essentials in your bag at all times so you never go without them.
Let’s see what they are!
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15 Important Work Bag Essentials You Must Carry With You
1. A good and practical work bag
First things first, before you can start stuffing your work bag, you need a good and practical bag or backpack! Look for workbags of with good quality and a lot of different compartments to keep things neat and organized.
There is nothing as annoying as just having one big compartment as your bag and all your stuff mixing, you can’t find anything! That’s so frustrating!
This laptop tote bag looks stylish and has plenty of room and different compartments to keep everything organized. However, if you have a big commute by public transport, you might prefer a good quality backpack to carry all your workday essentials.
Get what suits your style best and what works for you.
2. Your work keys or badge
You can’t forget your keys or badge or you might be locked out of the office building when you get there.
To help you find them in your bag, you can attach a beautiful or funny keychain to them. I found this birdie keychain on Amazon and I think this is perfect for women, next to it being a cute keychain, it is also a personal safety alarm so you feel safer walking outside in the dark or when having to go through a scary parking lot.
Of course, your keychain doesn’t have to have a safety alarm to it, you could also get a wristlet keychain for example. This can come in handy when you have to carry many things and you can just let your keys hang from your wrist. It will also be very useful when you are going to the gym after work!
3. Notebook
Bringing a notebook to the office is a great habit, you might have blocks of paper to write on there, but you want to keep your notes with you. And of course, you can type everything on your laptop, but when you have to write something down quickly, a notebook will be your best option.
I think it’s good to have in your work bag when you’re using public transport. You can use your time commuting writing in your notebook work or not work-related things. It’s perfect for making grocery lists while on the way to work or brainstorming ideas.
You could also use it to write down your to-do’s for the day so you can manually check them off, which works very motivating.
4. Pens and at least one marker
You are nothing with a notebook in your work bag if you don’t have any pens to write in it. Get yourself a bunch of good-quality basic pens for your everyday writing needs.
When you are a woman who loves stationery, you might want to buy some prettier pens to have with you. These gel pens have a very cute design and are available in black and blue ink.
And when you have your basic writing tool, the pen, you might also want to have at least one marker in your work bag, for highlighting important stuff. I love the pastel highlighters from Stabilo, but they do leak through if you don’t have sturdy paper, so beware. The original stabilo markers don’t do this as much and the basic yellow one is great for highlighting important things.
I have this set of both fluorescent and pastel markers standing on my desk at home and I love it.
5. Earplugs or headphones
Another essential work bag item is earplugs or headphones. When you work in an office, chances are big you work in a landscape office, which is more often than not loud and disturbing. If you have your own private office, kudos to you!
But for all the people working in a landscape office who have a hard time focusing on their work when their coworkers are making phone calls or talking to each other, get some noise-canceling earplugs!
Earbuds are also a great option if you want the possibility of listening to music as well, I love my AirPods Pro from Apple, the noise-canceling function works great and I can tolerate them for quite some time in my sensitive ears.
If you often get ear infections or your ears get painful very rapidly from putting earplugs in them, invest in a good pair of noise-canceling headphones instead. They are also wonderful when you are commuting and want to cancel the noise in public transportation while listening to your favorite songs.
6. Tissues and disinfectant
Okay, this may sound stupid, but I never leave the house without a packet of tissues. It may sound silly, but they come in handy on multiple occasions!
You need them if you are prone to allergies in hayfever season, or you go to work whilst having a cold, the runny nose will stop for no one and will not wait to drop till you reach the office.
Another good example of emergency use of tissues is when you have to urgently use the bathroom and notice that there is no toilet paper after you’ve done your business… thank god for the tissues in your work bag!
It’s also good practice to bring some hand sanitizer with you since you won’t always have a hand washing station available.
7. Bag organizer
If you have a great work bag with only one big compartment and all of your things always get cluttered but you don’t want to buy another one with more compartments, you need a bag organizer!
Check out this amazing bag organizer! It’s truly a great invention, as it divides your bag into many different sections to keep your items tidy and organized. It comes in many different colors so you will find one that matches the inside of your work bag greatly. Different sizes are available so pick the right size for your bag.
The days when you can’t find your keys or lip balm are over when you keep it all organized with this amazing tool.
8. Blue light-blocking glasses
Another office must-have if you work in front of a screen more often than not are blue light-blocking glasses. They come in all shapes and sizes but have the same effect: blocking the blue light coming from your laptop, tablet, or phone.
So when you sense that you get eyestrain from looking at screens all day, or your eyes feel dry, you can give them a go, they might help you lessen your discomfort.
You could also keep a pair at home when you are watching YouTube or Netflix all day on your day off.
9. Waterbottle and a healthy snack
Work bag essentials you can not go without are a reusable water bottle and a (healthy) snack.
A reusable water bottle is environmentally friendly and helps you drink more water throughout your workday. There are even water bottles with marks as targets to get your water in each hour of the day.
A healthy snack will give you a power boost throughout the day, energize you, and give you more focus.
Imagine getting stuck in traffic on a bloody hot day, you will praise the lord that you have your water bottle and a snack in your work bag! Plus it will save you money because you will be less tempted to buy expensive food or drinks at your office.
10. Planner
Highly productive people always have a planner, there is no way around it. This can be a paper planner or a planner/calendar on your phone, whichever works best for you.
If you want to carry as little as possible, it might be most convenient to use your phone calendar, since you’re bringing your phone anyway.
However, I think there are also great benefits to carrying a paper planner, their purpose can expand from just knowing your daily appointments. Some paper planners are basically life coaching journals if you will.
This paper planner from Clever Fox for example seems to have it all. Apart from writing important appointments in the weekly section, you can work towards building daily habits with their habit tracker, review the goals that you set for each area of your life, and even work on your gratitude practice. It also has a monthly overview, which can be helpful to see if you overbooked yourself this month or not, and helps with your personal development and growth with reflection sections.
11. Make-up and hygiene kit
I found there is something as a wedding emergency make-up kit, but why not have one for your workdays? I get that your wedding is obviously more important, but it’s nice to look good at your job as well, isn’t it?
It works best if you compose a set by yourself since you know the products that need to be in this make-up kit for you. Get yourself a cute travel make-up bag to put all your necessary products in. These can be products that need a touch-up during your workday or maybe things to fix your makeup after a crying sesh because of a bad performance review.
Maybe even more important than an emergency make-up kit, is an emergency hygiene kit! Going to work without any makeup on should be accepted, but greasy hair, bad breath, or body odor, are things that can’t be accepted in the workplace.
Bring things like deodorant, a toothbrush and some toothpaste, dental floss, a tongue scraper, and maybe some mouthwash if you can’t brush your teeth at work. These things will be super important when you have a lot of meetings all day and want to appear fresh and fruity for your bosses and clients.
With mouthwash, you should know that it’s just a quick fix, and get one without alcohol since this is not good for your gums. A tongue scraper will take care of your breath the most when you don’t have time to do anything else, just scrape your tongue! And with deodorant, it’s super important to find one that works for you, as you can still smell bad after putting on some types of deodorant.
For more tips about dental hygiene, check out my blog posts: Save Your Pretty Teeth with Interdental Cleaning like a Professional and 10 Healthy Teeth Tips to Stop Having Toothaches.
And don’t forget to bring feminine hygiene products as well, as you never know when the time of the month starts exactly and don’t want to be surprised!
12. Medication
You might think, why should I bring medication to work with me when I am not going to work when I am sick?
Well, with medication, I mean things like basic painkillers for when you get a big headache at work and can’t focus otherwise, or when your stomach gets upset something to relieve you from this pain.
If you have to take prescription drugs, it’s also very important to take them as the doctor prescribed and sometimes this means taking them with you in your work bag.
You can also bring bandaids if your workplace doesn’t provide them for when you cut yourself with paper or while making lunch, or have a blister from wearing new shoes.
13. Chapstick and hand cream
Chapstick and hand cream are work bag essentials without a doubt, especially in winter.
Chappy lips are just horrible and dry hands can get really painful. That’s why you should carry a good quality lip balm with you everywhere you go to prevent them from chapping and keep your lips smooth and pain-free.
Hand cream is also a must-have for everyone really since COVID-19 I think the hand hygiene went up and everyone’s hands got dryer and more painful with this as well. Since good hand hygiene is always important to prevent infections from spreading, invest in a quality hand cream to keep your hands nourished.
There are so many different hand creams and chapsticks on the market, but don’t be tempted into buying the fancy brands or cheapest ones since the quality of these items is very important.
14. Powerbank and charger
Regular workdays can be quite long, even more so when you have to work overtime. Depending on how much you use your phone and the battery age and quality, your phone battery might be dead before returning home.
That’s why you need to take a power bank or at least a phone charger with you in your work bag! If your phone battery is amazing and you could go all day every day without charging it, you don’t need these tools obviously.
15. Work laptop and phone
And last but not least, don’t forget to bring your work laptop and phone. You get this equipment from the company you work for and when you also work at home, you could forget to bring the laptop and phone back with you to the office.
This is just a friendly reminder not to forget these essentials, as you probably can’t work without them. Make sure they fit in your work bag and that they are fully charged or bring their chargers along to plug them in while working.