The Case for a Briefcase: A Lesson From the Pandemic That I Will Keep Carrying

I used to vaguely believe that briefcases and fedoras go together. In photographs from the 1950s, the businessmen in flannel suits all seemed to have both. The hats went out of fashion, and I came to assume we learned something better about the briefcases, too. Namely: Leave them behind; travel light; don’t go to and from the workday carrying all of that weight. But during the previous year, I came to understand that those flannel-suited pros had something figured out. A well-packed briefcase is pure freedom.

This was a lesson of the pandemic. At the time I am writing these words, COVID-19 seems at or near an end for the United States. Vaccination is available; restrictions have lifted; public venues and workplaces have opened up. Now, the next step: We will see what changes from the time of the pandemic will be lasting. For me, the habit of toting my work with me, something I did only rarely before, will be a lasting change. The power of a briefcase is a lesson of the past year I expect to carry forward.

That lesson arose from an accommodation many of us made last year, the shift to working from home. For me, that shift brought opportunity and challenge. The opportunity: I live just two miles from my workplace, so it was easy for me to choose on-the-fly, according to the needs of the day or the moment, between working at home or at my employer’s nearly empty office building. Meanwhile, the challenge was this: I live in a small house, with no really good space to absorb and accommodate the fullness of my job. I have a study, but — well, that’s my study. It is where I think my thoughts and write odd optional pieces like this one. My job could easily overwhelm and take away a restorative personal space if I let it. However, I found the answer that served me well. As it turned out, maintaining a briefcase for carrying my work, all my active work, proved to be both an aid to the opportunity and an answer to the challenge.

Now, I have come to appreciate both the balance and the creative power that come from this resource. With the briefcase at hand, I am always ready for work, and at the same time, the work is always contained and packaged enough that I can neatly set it aside.

Carrying the briefcase is no burden. The burden the bag imposes happens elsewhere; I’ll get to that. But first, a point on terminology: Can we agree that “briefcase” really is the right term for this thing I’ve been carrying?

What’s in a Bag?

Definitions of the word “briefcase” vary more widely than one might expect, and they even contradict one another. Merriam-Webster requires only “a flat flexible case for carrying papers or books.” I’ve got that. However, other definitions require hard sides. Those 1950s cases generally had that, but mine does not. Also, I have never used my own case to carry briefs by any definition.

My briefcase — I’m sticking with the word — is a soft rectangular bag full of most everything I need to do my work. The best bag I found for this purpose initially was a shoulder bag with many pockets that I received as a giveaway at an industry conference. I just recently replaced that bag with a backpack briefcase, equally well appointed with pockets, because this will be easier to carry through airports now that I am traveling again. The contents are the same in either case. Here is a partial list of what I keep in the bag:

My laptop, of course. Charging cables. A mouse. Earbuds. The greatest adjustable stand ever for holding a cell phone at the right angle for video calls. My currently active steno pad, the one with all my latest notes. Writing pads in case longhand writing breaks out. A fat pen; thin pens. Erasable pens, because editing is part of my work. And so on.

Crucially, the bag also contains materials for all my open projects — the ones I might want or need to take up today or in the few days ahead, with one vinyl sleeve apiece holding materials for each project like this. Stocking the bag in this way thus requires identifying which projects these are, and that thinking is an important and useful part of the habit of the bag.

Armed with all of this, I am prepared to take up my work and take after an idea at any time I find my thoughts suddenly marshaling to pursue it. When I talk of freedom, this is part of what I mean.

I believe I can hear the protest. I expect some might say: “Let it go! Leave it behind when the workday ends. What about work-life balance?”

My answer: I have it. What some refer to as work-life balance sounds to me like work-life militancy. My imagination for work does not stop at the time of day I leave the office, just as other parts of my life (or even just the need to get a breath) might sometimes draw me away in the midst of the business day. The essence of “balance” is learning to lean this way or that in response to changes in momentum or inertia. That is, the essence of balance is graceful moves.

Readiness and Boundaries

I want to say more on work-life balance, but before I do, can we examine this term as well? The phrase “work-life” seems to imply that work and life are the opposites, that they are the yin and yang in need of balancing. But no! I object: Work and life are not the opposites, and not where the balance is struck. Instead, work is a vital and expressive part of life, and work is even a means by which we aid and elevate other lives. A more accurate phrase might be “professional-personal balance” or “uptime-downtime balance,” but I admit neither of these phrases has the same ring. Balance, in any case, is right.

Here is how the briefcase serves this balance:

A briefcase is not for everyone in all fields, but presumably many of those reading these words are involved in some kind of idea-focused work — advancing information, knowledge, programs or systems within their workdays to a greater extent than moving physical things. The definitely bounded workday makes sense for work that is focused on making, moving, or curating physical objects, because those items stay where they are when the employees go home. But that same definitely bounded workday can be a poor fit for idea-focused work, because those ideas live in our minds, and our minds are given to moving or shaping those ideas as they will. Inspiration can come. Indeed, it does come, and by being ready to work when it comes, the way is easier — I can complete something in 45 minutes when my mind is really seeing it, versus what might take 3 hours when I am trying to push through the same project while my frame of mind is just wrong.

The briefcase — having all the resources I might need at the ready, so I don’t have to stop, make notes to myself, and hope to rekindle it all later — is an aid to making use of the times when my mind happens to settle into a mode to do good work. But then, boundaries are also needed. The personal time and the downtime are also vital, and the briefcase is an aid to this as well. The work is all physically contained in the briefcase and it can be physically put aside. When it is time to stop, physically packing the bag can be powerful. Actions such as this are instrumental for instructing the soul how to feel.

In fact, there is a ritual to packing the bag. And if I ever lose my way with the briefcase, it will be because I have undervalued the importance of this simple step.

What You Leave In, What You Leave Out

Recalling what I myself would once have assumed about briefcases, I expect the skeptic to look at my full bag and say, “Why carry all that?” But the carrying is no problem. A briefcase is a comfortable accessory and a reassuring weight.

Instead, repacking the bag is what takes extra minutes. This is what feels like a burden. That moment of facing the repacking is inevitably the moment in which I am tempted to just leave things as they are, in their current state of disorder, and walk away.

Ultimately, though, this abandonment would exert a pull on me greater than the weight of the bag, and not just because of the chance for missed inspiration when the work is left behind. That disorder also has indecision all through it, indecision that remains unaddressed. Some items belong in the bag and some don’t. To repack, I need to reaffirm what resources I need, and this refocusing is a valuable exercise in letting go and clarifying priorities. I ask, “What am I really working on? What is incomplete? What has or deserves my attention? What tools will I use?” All of that gets packed away, and this ritual itself, with the small amount of time and care it takes, says something to me, something my soul can hear, about the agendas and the urgencies of the workday now coming to an end.

The briefcase is freedom, but it is liberating for various interweaving reasons all at once. This bag I’m now carrying is useful for how much it contains, for how little it contains, and also for how well it contains it.

Peter Zelinski writes and speaks about manufacturing. He is editor-in-chief of Modern Machine Shop, editor-in-chief of Additive Manufacturing, co-host of the Made in the USA podcast, and co-host of The Cool Parts Show, a YouTube series about industrial 3D printing.