If working remotely is on the cards for personal or professional reasons, these 13 tools could help you stay organised and productive.
Are you planning to work remotely anytime soon? If so, the right tools could make all the difference.
Beyond the well-known players such as Google Drive and Dropbox, we’ve put together a list of 13 handy online tools that will help you get the job done – wherever you are.
Trello
Whether you work alone or as part of a wider team, Trello could make remote-working life easier for you. Through this web-based tool, you can interact and collaborate with team members on communal platforms called ‘boards’, and add files, images, comments and more to cards, creating lists of tasks or plans. It’s great for keeping track of projects for a range of industries.
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— Trello (@trello) March 10, 2020
Slack
Communication is almost always important for successful projects, but that becomes critical when your team is spread out across different locations. A popular method of keeping in touch is instant messaging platform Slack, where you can create a number of group chats called ‘channels’. You can also avail of its Slackbot feature to set up automatic reminders for yourself or your team.
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— Slack (@SlackHQ) March 9, 2020
Highfive
Just because you’re not based in the same building as your colleagues doesn’t mean meetings and catch-ups have to suffer. There are plenty of tools that can set you up with a ‘virtual conference room’, such as Highfive. The video-conferencing software boasts a set-up time of less than 15 minutes.
Asana
Asana is another project management tool that aims to help streamline your work. Through its portfolio feature, you can monitor the status of projects in real time and its integrations element means you can tie together your emails, files and ‘tickets’ under one roof.
Working from home? Eliminate the overwhelm that comes from the flexibility of your day by establishing a routine. Develop a routine that works for you & stick to it. It will help you stay focused when each day can be different. Get more #remotework tips: https://t.co/HoKRkUHPln pic.twitter.com/NVHe4pC05z
— Asana (@asana) March 9, 2020
Todoist
Another office essential that doesn’t have to get left behind when working from home is a robust to-do list. Todoist is a platform that allows you to organise and prioritise tasks, visualise your productivity, share tasks with others, set recurring due dates and more.
Toggl
Something that’s beneficial for your productivity, no matter where you’re working from, is effective time tracking. A tool you can employ here is Toggl, which provides data on how and where your time is being spent. It also syncs timers across your browser, phone and desktop apps.
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— Toggl (@toggl) March 10, 2020
Chimp or Champ
Even when staff are working remotely, it’s important for managers to prioritise employee wellbeing.
And since you can’t talk to them face-to-face, something like Chimp or Champ could help. It’s described as a “weekly anonymous employee happiness meter”.
Every Thursday, members of your team receive a check-in email and have one day to respond on how they felt throughout the week. The following day, managers get a ‘pulse report’ on their team, with actionable feedback to boot.
Time Doctor
Another tool that could boost your productivity or help keep track of teams while working remotely is Time Doctor. It features automated screenshots to help you track your activity and provide feedback on the amount of time you spend chatting with others, data on the hours you dedicate to specific clients and projects, as well as web and app usage and break tracking.
If you’re managing a remote workforce or employee with access to the web?, you may be concerned how they’re using the internet. #remotework
To help you with this, here’s our comprehensive guide ? https://t.co/VzAoll0mQC on how to monitor employee internet usage. #mondayblogs pic.twitter.com/O9IT834WvG— Time Doctor (@ManageYourTime) March 9, 2020
Zoom
Video conference tool Zoom has a range of applications, from facilitating remote training and online meetings to a user-friendly phone system and cross-platform file sharing. It’s great for large companies that need to employ remote working as it can host up to 1,000 video participants and 10,000 viewers at a time.
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— Zoom (@zoom_us) March 9, 2020
iDoneThis
Teams seeking to maintain – or perhaps even heighten – productivity levels when working remotely could benefit from iDoneThis. The daily check-in platform asks each employee to submit a daily status update either through their browser or email, highlighting the progress of tasks as well as any obstacles to their completion, meaning you can keep an eye on a team’s progress.
BugHerd
This tool is aimed at website users who need to regularly report bugs back to their web developers. Described as “sticky notes”, the app sits at the top of your website and from there you can log a bug instantly. Its sidebar tool also gives an overview of different bug reports from across a team.
Again, if emails aren’t proving to be as efficient as you’d like them to be, BugHerd could offer an alternative avenue of speedier and tidier communication for remote workers.
Testing can be fundamental to providing a reliable experience to users.
Everyone can take part in the #testing process. It doesn’t have to take deep tech knowledge to provide feedback on something that’s not behaving correctly. Dev James Coleman explores: https://t.co/2piA84MP9A pic.twitter.com/HbRHqWvUvq— BugHerd (@bugherd) March 5, 2020
CoSchedule
If you’re in the field of marketing, CoSchedule is a project management tool that could be of interest. It includes elements for organising content, calendars, projects and social media as well as asset storage.
Milanote
More of a visual worker in a creative industry? Through Milanote, teams can group ideas and projects into visual board – whether it’s campaigns, research or components of an app or publication.
Background colors mean you can customize your boards even more. Perfect for moodboarding or just to personalize your workspace. ? pic.twitter.com/neNoGuElSR
— Milanote (@milanoteapp) February 12, 2020
