What’s in my Work Bag?

A big thank you to Natural Balance Foods for providing a sample pack of Nakd Bars for me to try in exchange for a review.  All opinions are 100% my own and I would not recommend a product I did not fully support!

So, let’s chat about work….for those of you that may be new to SGSB, I wanted to take a few minutes via this post to talk about my full-time job and the lifestyle it entails. To sum it up in a title, I am a Technology Consultant specializing in Cybersecurity. What this really means is that I have developed a technical skill set that allows me to work with my clients to secure their most valuable information, including intellectual property, credit cards, customer information, sales info, etc. My days include meeting with key stakeholders, analyzing the settings of a particular technology and writing reports. It has been a great experience so far and I love that I have been able to express my personality through color and prints in the business casual environment. My style at work is all about bold colors and prints while being comfortable (really, comfort is key in my book) and polished! This dress has been perfect for going to work and then to dinner or happy hours! I even wore it under a skirt this weekend to a polo match with some Houston Bloggers! I normally stick with flats, but love these super comfortable Cole Haan heels that I found on sale at Dillard’s a few weeks ago. I really like to keep my jewelry simple and added some stud earrings and my go-to watch.

Boden Dress | Tory Burch Tote | Cole Haan Heels | Kendra Scott Earrings | Michele Watch

Another part of the job is that I go where my client is –  which means, I travel pretty much every week. I get on the plane at 7am on Monday morning and land back in Houston around 8PM on Thursday evening. I have been in this role for a little over three years now and feel like I have really gotten a good routine down that works for me – I have what I pack down to a science!

In the first part of this mini-series, I wanted to show y’all what I carry with me in my work tote, which doubles as a purse when I travel. Yep, I hardly ever bring a purse with me because I always carry my bag on the plane with me and it gets to be too much of a hassle to carry a purse and then have to put it away every time I have to go through a checkpoint. It definitely sad when I purchase a new purse and can’t carry it often, but I have started to purchase more totes to make up for it. 🙂  And since I travel so much, I don’t have a desk where I can store things, so my tote has to carry pretty much everything I may need.OK  – let’s dive in and pour out the contents of my bag….

So first thing, first – my laptop. It goes with me everywhere and is my lifeline. I would be lost without it (kind of like my phone)…which brings me to my Mophie portable charger (the red rectangle at the top of the picture). It can re-charge my iPhone multiple times without have to be re-charged. It fits perfectly in my bag or in my back jeans pocket for some quick juice on the go. Other essentials I carry with me are a notebook (lots of to-do lists), headphones to listen to some jams while writing reports, a school spirited retractable badge holder, a hair tie and chapstick. All of my chargers, cords, pens, dry erase markers fit perfectly into my Vera Bradley cosmetics case – this keeps my bag neat and helps me to find what I am looking for!

I have also recently started carrying a few essential oils with me. I am by no means an expert when it comes to these, but I am loving learning about them and using them during the work day to keep me focused and de-stressed (Stress Away), to help relieve some of pain of a headache and energize me (Peppermint) and to calm down at the end of the day (Lavender).

And last but not least, on to one of the most important things – snacks! I often am running from meeting to meeting and sometimes don’t have time to go out and grab lunch. After having to skip a lunch and being a hangry, unproductive “lady” for the rest of the afternoon, I decided I needed to have something quick yet nutrituous to munch on between meetings. I found these delicious fruit and nut bars by Natural Balance Food. What is great is that they show all of the contents of the bars on the back of the wrapper. They are made with ingredients I can actually pronounce! 😀 And they are delicious! My favorite is the Cocoa Mint – it has a hint of sweetness with the chocolate (and y’all know how much I love chocolate)!! Some of my other favorite flavors include: Strawberry Crunch, Rhubarb and Custard, and Ginger Bread. And another great thing about these fruit and nut bars is that they are gluten, wheat and dairy free for anyone who may have a sensitivity!!

What are the essentials that you keep in your work bag? Or at your desk?

Save