If you are new to working from home, you need the right tools to maximize your productivity. Whether you’re working solo or as part of a team, technology can help you get more done. Here is my list of the top work from home apps you need to rock your new work from home situation.
Boost Productivity with These Work from Home Apps
- RescueTime is an automatic time-tracking app that helps you understand where your time goes each day. This is one of my favorite work from home apps that will optimize your energy and help you take back control of your day.
- Evernote is an easy-to-use, free app that helps you remember everything across all of the devices you use. It lets you take notes, sync files, save webpages, capture photos, create to-do lists, and record voice reminders–and makes these notes completely searchable, whether you are at home, at work, or on the go.
- Dropbox is a free file storing cloud service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Move all files to the cloud so that you can access them from any device, anywhere. Dropbox allows you to interface with your team to share files too, which is great for version control and cuts down on email.
- Google Docs (and its partner, Google Sheets) are work from home apps that bring your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs, or create spreadsheets. Choose from hundreds of fonts, add links, images, and drawings—all for free.
- Todoist is a task management tool that promises to turn complex to-do lists into something easily manageable. It helps you keep track of your tasks and make sure nothing gets forgotten.
- TimeOut for Mac helps remind you to take work breaks throughout the day. It has two kinds of breaks: a “normal” break, typically for 10 minutes after 50 minutes of work, so you can move about and relax, plus a “micro” break, which is a very brief pause of typically 10 seconds every 10 minutes, so you can remember not to tense up too much for long periods.
- Smart Break for Windows is an intelligent mindfulness program that helps prevent eye strain and mental stress by reminding and enforcing you to take regular breaks. The key is to build movement variety into the normal workday through smart activity breaks. The 3-minute breaks make you feel better instantly. I have included two work from home apps that focus on taking breaks because breaks are essential to productivity and quality of work too!
- Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and group messaging into one easy-to-use platform. This single app offers voice, video, voicemail, messaging, meetings, and conferencing.
- Skype is a telecommunications app that provides video chat and voice calls between computers, tablets, mobile devices, and smartwatches over the Internet. Skype also offers instant messaging services. Users may transmit text, video, audio, and images.
- Slack is one of the best work from home apps that helps you boost collaboration. With it, you can replace email to help you and your team work together seamlessly. It’s where the people you need, the information you share, and the tools you use come together to get things done. It’s designed to support the way people naturally work.
- IFTTTstands for “if this, then that.” It’s a simple internet app that automates actions if a certain condition is met. For example, if it checks the weather, and it appears to be raining, you can set it up to send you a text message to grab an umbrella. It can call your phone as a reminder of an important appointment and send starred Gmail messages to Evernote. There’s much more you can do. IFTTT can seem a little intimidating at first, but you’ll get the hang of it quickly.
- LastPass is a free password manager and form-filler for people who are tired of trying to remember all those passwords. If you regularly move between multiple computers, devices, and operating systems, LastPass allows you to access any account credentials from a vault that saves your usernames and passwords. This means less memorization and quicker access. Just make sure to set a STRONG password to protect your vault.
- Zapier is an easy-to-use automation service for busy people. Zapier moves info between your web apps automatically so that you can focus on your most important work. It is an online automation tool that connects your favorite apps, such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, and more.
- HelloSign is an eSignature solution built for business. Automate and manage your most important business transactions with the HelloSign platform. They offer unlimited signature requests with no hidden fees.
- MixMax is a marketing automation software that upgrades your Gmail and Google inbox with unlimited email tracking, instant scheduling, reminders, send later, mail merge, surveys, and polls. It also integrates with CRM software like Pipedrive and Salesforce.
If you start using these work from home apps, you’ll save time and money, and position yourself to be your most productive self. These tools will help you work from home and home school like a pro. We are all adjusting to this ‘new normal.’ Hopefully, a few of these tools will make your adjustment easier.
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