Top 22 Remote Working Tools for Teams to 10x Productivity
Are you a company that’s recently switched to working remotely? Are you in need of some top remote working tools to improve your remote team’s productivity?
While remote work is beneficial in many ways, it also presents its own unique challenges. Building meaningful relationships, managing your projects, and keeping your team accountable can be difficult while working remotely.
In this article, we’re sharing 20 best remote working tools your remote team can use to stay productive, connected, and on the same page at all times.
22 Remote Working Tools for Remote Teams to Achieve Peak Productivity
The Best Tool for Team Chat
1. Slack
Slack combines all the basic communication essentials into one simple-to-use platform. It provides real-time messaging, voice and video calling, archiving and search for teams.
Also, it gives you the ability to create different channels or groups and share files with your teammates. Moreover, you can integrate all your remote tools with slack to get notifications regarding them in one place.
The Best Tool for Video Calls and Screen Sharing
2. Zoom
Zoom is the most reliable and robust video conferencing tool on the market. It’s perfect for both small and large remote teams alike; and offers a simple, stable platform that makes it easier to get your remote team together for a meeting.
The tool comes with HD quality audio and video, and gives you the ability to share and annotate your screen, schedule meetings, and join as a view-only attendee. Ideal for weekly team meetings, one-off calls with teammates, and remote presentations.
The Best Tool for Cloud Storage and File Sharing
3. Google Drive
Google Drive is an online cloud storage service that provides you with one secure place for all your digital files. It lets you store and share files such as word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with multiple team members.
Also, it provides you with an intuitive interface that makes organizing and searching files incredibly easy and convenient.
The Best Tools for Project Management
4. Trello
If you’re looking for a simple project management tool or if you’re a small remote team, Trello is for you. With Trello, you just create boards, cards, and lists to manage your entire project.
With just a quick glance, you’d be able to see what tasks you and your team members are working on, and when the tasks are due.
5. Asana
Asana is a popular project management tool used by numerous remote teams. It lets you view projects in multiple ways. Apart from the “Boards” view, Asana offers two more views that remote teams would find useful – a “Lists” view which basically lists out a project’s tasks, and a “Calendar” view that lays out the tasks on a calendar.
Also, Asana provides you with premade project templates for managing all kinds of projects, from marketing, product to design, HR and more.
The Best Tool for Time Management
6. Toggl
Toggl is a time tracking tool that allows you to track the real time you spend working on your projects. By tracking how long it takes you to complete your tasks, you’d be able to better optimize your time to get more done in less time.
Also, it syncs timers across your browser and all your desktop apps. You can try a similar time tracking tool like Apploye.
The Best Tool for Password Management
7. LastPass
LastPass lets you manage your team passwords the safe and easy way. With LastPass, you can create super-strong passwords and give your team members access to these passwords.
With just a single click, your remote team would be able to log into all the apps they’ve been provided passwords for. How? Well, LastPass automatically loads the password for the app they want to log into.
This way, your team members don’t have to go through the pain of having to remember and enter a password every time they want to log into an app.
The Best E-signature Tool
8. DocuSign
DocuSign lets you easily collect and store e-signatures – digital marks that indicate agreement to documents or contracts. It saves your remote team the hassle of having to download, print, sign and then scan the document.
Not only is it a huge time-saver, but it’s also eco-friendly as it involves a paperless process.
The Best Time Converter
9. WorldTimeBuddy
Setting up meetings or communicating effectively with your teammates gets tricky if your team is spread across different timezones and geographies. WorldTimeBuddy lets you enter multiple timezones and find times that work best for y’all.
The Best Tools for Communicating Visually and Quickly
10. Vmaker
Vmaker is a kind of tool that is the best investment any remote team can make to improve communication and collaboration. It’s a screen recorder that can record screen, webcam, and audio. This means you can send asynchronous video messages to your colleagues and not interrupt their deep work mode. It’s also great for making tutorial videos, product demos, video emails, and recording online meetings.
11. Skitch
Skitch lets you easily grab and annotate screenshots. Skitch provides you with some advanced options such as the ability to take timed screenshots and blur certain parts of the screenshot.
It’s ideal for giving feedback on images and getting your point across with fewer words.
12. Loom
Loom is a free screen and video recording tool that makes creating, annotating, and sharing screencasts a cinch. It lets you easily record your front-facing camera and screen (with audio) directly from your browser and instantly share it with your team.
The Best Tool for Remote Desktop Access
13. AnyDesk
If you want to gain access to your teammate’s computer remotely, or you need access to your home computer while you’re on the road, AnyDesk is the tool you need.
AnyDesk is a remote access tool that lets you remotely control one computer from another over the internet.
The Best Ambient Sound Generators
14. Brain.fm
A 2012 study found that a moderate level of ambient sound enhanced creativity. Also, ambient sound helps you stay focused by keeping your mind from wandering and blocking out distracting sounds.
Brain.fm offers functional music (backed by scientific research) to help listeners improve their focus and boost their productivity.
15. Noisli
Noisli is based on a similar idea, but it offers ambient sounds such as nature sounds, coffeeshop sound, etc. The tool gives you the ability to mix a variety of different sounds.
The Best Tools for Team Project Management
16. Teamwork
If you want a project management tool that allows you to increase profitability and grow your business, Teamwork is the right fit for you. Get a bird’s eye view of every project, from milestones to project planning, budgeting, time tracking, and more. Collaborate in real-time with your team and clients to get your questions answered and projects delivered on time.
The Best Tools for Writing and Editing
17. Evernote
Evernote is a cross-platform note-taking app that’s great for managing your notes and clipping articles from the web. With Evernote, your notes get synced across all your devices.
18. Grammarly
Grammarly is hands-down the most popular grammar, plagiarism and spell checking tool. It’s invaluable in that it helps you avoid grammatical or spelling mistakes before you hit that publish or send button.
The Best Noise-cancelling Tool
19. Krisp
Krisp is a noise-cancelling tool that removes all background noises while you’re on a call or a remote meeting with your team. With Krisp, your team can have professional, noiseless calls from anywhere.
Also, Krisp integrates with popular apps such as Slack, Zoom, Hangouts, etc.
The Best Mind Mapping Tool
20. Coggle
Mind mapping helps you visualize your thinking process. Your team can use mind maps for brainstorming or recording a process step-by-step.
Coggle is a mind-mapping tool that gives you everything you need to map out your ideas and thoughts into something coherent and useful.
The Best Accountability and Reporting Tool
21. IDoneThis
IDoneThis is a daily check-in tool that employees use to submit a daily status update, either via their browser or email. Each team member highlights the tasks accomplished for the day and the obstacles to the tasks’ completion.
The next day, IDoneThis sends out a recap of what everyone on the team did the previous day and gives your team the ability to like and comment on the previous day’s tasks.
The Best Video Making Tool
22. Animaker
Animaker is an online drag-and-drop video maker that lets anyone create animations and live-action videos using premade templates and assets. Absolutely no prior video-making experience required; meaning you can quickly whip up a video even if you’ve never created one before.
Most of the tools on this list are free or offer a free trial so you can test them and see what works best for your team. What kind of remote working tools does your team find the most useful? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
10 Netflix Movies/Series to watch for building awareness on Pandemics
Everyone is inside their homes, locked down and maintaining social distancing to protect themselves.
Who would have imagined being in the situation we are in right now?
Definitely not me.
A casual conversation with my colleagues at Animaker started this topic. “How really aware are we about pandemics?”
We discussed the information we knew among ourselves but since no one had experienced this kind of pandemic earlier and we didn’t come to a conclusion.
Later at home, during a conversation with my grandmother (who lived through World War 2), she mentioned that the current lockdown was more strict than any of the lockdowns she had seen in her time.
It became clear to me that COVID19 was more serious than anything we have seen in the last 100 years. So it is very important for people to understand the seriousness of the situation.
But, the issue is that people aren’t really taking things seriously. While most people have self-isolated themselves, there are some people still visiting malls, partying with their friends and even having sleepovers.
This got me thinking “What would it really take for people to understand the seriousness of things?”
Movies are the answer.
Stuck between a section of people who have responsibly isolated themselves and people who are yet to realize what is happening right now, Movies seem like the only way to connect and convey the dos and don’ts in this time.
So here is my list of 10 movies and series that can spread awareness about Pandemics. From Empty roads, Empty supermarkets, and million more empty places, these movies not only connect with our current situation but also increases our awareness about pandemics.
1. Pandemic: How to prevent an outbreak (2020) – Netflix
A documentary showcasing how the doctors fought the war against lethal virus Influenza and how they abolished it with the cure.
Available on: Netflix
2. 93 days (2016) – Movie
A movie with the story outline of the Ebola virus in Nigeria. It explains how the virus was contained before it became an epidemic.
Available on: Netflix, PrimeVideo
3. 12 Monkeys (1995) – Movie
This movie is about a deadly virus named Kalavirus that is released by an army named 12 Monkeys. The plot of the movie involves travelling back in time and finding the cure for the virus.
Available on: Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
4. Train to Busan (2016) – Movie
A virus leak from the biological factory caused the humans to become Zombies. The apocalypse happens as the train moves from Seoul to Busan.
Available on: Netflix, iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
5. Outbreak (1995) – Movie
A deadly virus wipes out a village in 24 hours. Skilled army doctors research & struggle to find a cure for the virus that was brought into the city by an African monkey.
Available on: iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
6. Carriers (2009) – Movie
A movie about a virus that sweeps across the United States. The movie focuses on four characters who were the only survivors and how they survived throughout the pandemic virus spread.
Available on: PrimeVideo
7. 28 weeks later (2007) – Movie
This movie is about a rage virus that turned Britain into Zombies. The isolated survivors helped by the US Army fight against these zombies to survive.
Available on: iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
8. Contagion (2011) – Movie
This movie is about an infection that is transmitted by Fomites and the doctors, healthcare professionals put their hands together to find the cure for this pandemic disease.
Available on: iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
9. Virus (2011) – Movie [Malayalam]
This movie is based on the Nipah Virus that breaks out in the state of Kerala and how a group of individuals tries to contain the virus.
Available on: PrimeVideo
10. 28 days later (2002) – Movie
An award-winning film about the accidental release of a deadly virus and how the four survivors struggled against it.
Available on: iTunes, YouTube, PrimeVideo
Now that you have some handpicked pandemic movies to watch from your home, isolate yourself and maintain distance from people as much as possible to avoid the further spread of the deadly COVID19.
Right from the series Pandemic which shares the struggles of different doctors battling against the deadly influenza virus which shows us the precautionary measures that has to be followed during the virus outspread. This can help us with what we should do and what we should not do during this lockdown.
The other movies like Train to Busan, 28 days later, and others show how we should support ourselves, helping each other out when there’s nothing outside and the social forgiveness & the tendency to help each other is going to keep us going during this pandemic days.
What else can you do to keep yourself safe right now?
- Wash your hands – You have already heard this a million times but washing your hands is still the most effective way to keep yourself safe from the virus. Our hands are the no.1 way in which we interact with this world. So washing your hands every couple of hours can minimize your chance of infecting yourself. WHO also recommends using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer to ensure best protection when you don’t have quick access to running water.
- Maintain distance – In case you are going out to buy essentials or loiter around your house, maintain social distancing of at least 1 meter or 3.2 feet. This distance will protect you from any germs if anyone coughs or sneezes around you.
- Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth – If your hands contact any material or you touch anything, your hand can pick up viruses. Once your hand is contaminated, Viruses can enter your body when you contact your hands to your eyes, nose or mouth.
- Be responsible – If you have any of the COVID19 symptoms namely – Fever, cough, dry throat, difficulty in breathing. Seek medical care immediately, get yourself tested. If there are no such testing centers isolate yourself and avoid contact with anyone to avoid further spread.
- Abide by the rules & regulations – The experts are trying so hard to ensure the safety and wellness of the people. So, please abide by the instructions they give.In short, avoid public gatherings, maintain social distance, work from home, isolate yourself, go out only for necessities.
We at Animaker are fighting against the Corona outbreak by isolating ourselves and working from home. Check out what our CEO says : How we are fighting the Corona outbreak at Animaker.
We have also introduced new templates, characters for your needs during this outbreak to ensure the right information is passed everywhere. Check out out the blog on Response to COVID19.
And finally #StayHome & #StaySafe