Inspired by foosel’s EDC blogpost I’ve decided to do the same with my laptop bag.

Altough I don’t have a dedicated EDC bag, my laptop bag kind of serves as one as I have it around most of the time.
When it’s unnecessary to carry my whole laptop bag, I’ll use a smaller fabric bag and carry only the subset of stuff that I’ll probably need.

But enough of the intro, what’s actually in the bag?

1. A bunch of FFP2 masks - I’m still quite careful when it comes to infectious diseases and especially Covid

2. The aforementioned fabric bag

3. My laptop - an HP Envy x360 convertible. You might see that the area around the left hinge is a bit bent because I dropped it once. Despite it being a Hinge Problem laptop, I’m actually quite satisfied with the hinges & overall build quality, considering it works flawless despite the ~1m drop.

4. Wallet, mainly containing cards. Insurance, credit card, student ID, regular ID, public transport ticket, organ donor card.

5. WH-1000XM4 headphones + AUX cable, 3.5mm→6.35mm and TRRS to 2x TRS adapter

6. USB-C to 2x USB A adapter & USB WiFi dongle. Especially the WiFi dongle has saved my ass multiple times, both as range extender with my laptop & as a “LAN-to-WiFi-converter” with a stationary computer

7. Regular ball pen, stylus & a mini caliper/ballpen combo

8. Paper notepad. Despite having a convertible laptop, I’m still quite attached to paper as it often times feels more flexible to quickly draw something on paper

9. 128 GiB SSD in a SATA/USB-Adapter case + cable (that’s a CNC-Kitchen sticker on top)

10. Glass wipe. I often joke that my vision is so bad I don’t even notice my dirty glasses, but sometimes it does get annoying or someone else needs to clean their glasses

11. Leatherman-style multi-tool which I got gifted

12. Pen-style screwdriver with some bits in the back and lighting (marketing gift from ZEISS)

13. A Casio fx-991 calculator. As with paper, I’m quite old-school here and often find it more convenient to use an actual calculator than using e.g. Python or WolframAlpha

14. (representative for my whole keychain) two carabiners, a little multitool and a bottle opener. I never figured out how to open bottles on random things and carabiners are just plain useful. Imagine some keys (not pictured for obvious reasons) and a YubiKey too.

15. Tissues. Runny nose? Tissue. Bleeding? Tissue! Dirt? Tissue…

16. Car-plug to USB-A adapter. Rarely used but got me out of some precarious situations and definitely has earned its place

17. Various USB cables. A to C, A to B, A to µB & C to C

18. Paperclips, sometimes abused as SIM-Ejection-tools or to push reset buttons

19. Nasal spray, Eye drops and lip creme as I tend to get quite dry eyes/skin

20. My medicine & some Ibuprofen painkillers

21. Magnifying glass & small monocular to help me with my low vision

There’s some stuff that I’d like to have in my bag but don’t for various reasons, mainly space or I just ran out of or lost a thing

• Disinfectant

• A flashlight (altouth I often just use the flash of my phone)

• Some glucose sweets

• More screwdrivers

• USB to (µ)SD adapter

• Extension cord / power strip

• Powerbanks

• Cable ties & gaffer tape (…keep the whole world together)

• Whiteboard pens

• …and so much more

People often ask me “Paddi, why do you carry all that useless stuff around?”. Well, it’s actually quite light and everything but useless. So many things got me out when I was really in a pickle and even though those things don’t get used daily, they saved my butt more than enough times to justify me carrying them around.
And the suprised/relieved faces when I respond to “If only we had xyz…” with pulling just that out of my bag never get old.