I recently set up a python script that reminds me of people’s birthdays that it reads from a text file. I also get notifications daily at midnight when my docker config is backed up using rsync. I also have a python script that creates an excel file of my qbittorrent metrics daily so i get notification for that also at midnight.

You could install guacamole on your main server and configure WoL on the spare one, so you could access the spare one from remotely from outside the network. It might help you to not carry your laptop (if you use one) everywhere.

I recently had to travel and had to carry my work laptop and my personal laptop, and I ended up hurting my back. I am thinking of getting a spare mini PC which would be configured this way and would act as my main machine when I travel, so I don’t have to carry my personal laptop everywhere. I would access it from my phone, or tablet, or from the work computer as I would have at least 2 of those devices on me anytime.

This is similar* to Amazon Workspaces, but on-prem-self-hosted.