The flat is your office this week. Check these first

Plenty of business travellers now spend half their London trip working from the apartment, and apartments differ far more as offices than they do in the photos. So the first questions to ask are about the desk, not the view.

Desk, Wi-Fi and light

Listing photos love a sofa and a dining table. Ask straight out whether there's a proper desk and an office chair, and which room they're in: a desk in the bedroom is fine for email and hopeless if a colleague is asleep while you take a 7am call to Singapore. In a two-bedroom apartment one bedroom often ends up as the office, which is a good reason to size up if there are two of you or you're staying longer than a week.

Ask what broadband the residence has, and whether the connection is shared across the building or private to your apartment. Then run a speed test within ten minutes of walking in, upload included, because video calls fail on upload first. If it's slow, tell reception or the building manager that evening rather than the next morning, and keep your phone's hotspot as a backup once you've checked your roaming allowance.

Street-facing rooms in central London are loud in summer, when the only way to cool down is to open a window. Only about half the residences we list mention air conditioning, so if you're working through July or August, check for it or ask for a room on the courtyard side. Light matters as much: a basement studio can be lovely to sleep in and grim to work in for eight hours, so ask which floor the apartment is on.

Parcels and other time zones

A staffed reception makes working life easier in small ways. Someone signs for couriers, holds documents and knows where the nearest print shop is. Not every building has one, though, and if yours doesn't, arrange deliveries for times you know you'll be in, or have them sent to the office.

If New York or Singapore sets your hours rather than London, tell the residence when you book. Ask whether housekeeping can come in the afternoon instead of at 9am, when you may have just finished a night of calls and want to sleep, and whether the street gets early deliveries or bin collections, which only the people in the building will know. Blackout blinds or heavy curtains matter more than usual on this schedule, so mention them in your request too.

What to pack

Most of this weighs next to nothing and saves a lot of irritation.

• UK plug adapters (Type G), at least two, plus a short extension lead
• An HDMI cable, so the TV can be a second screen
• A laptop stand and a separate keyboard if you're staying a while
• A headset with a mic, because apartment rooms echo on calls
• Your laptop charger and a spare phone cable, both labelled

If the trip mixes office days with apartment days, keep the commute short enough that a last-minute meeting doesn't wreck your afternoon. Nearly every residence on the site is within about ten minutes' walk of a station, but check which line serves your office rather than just which station is closest. And block out an hour outside at lunchtime, which over a week of calls does more for you than another coffee at the desk.