Helpful tools to be more efficient at remote work

Productivity

Productivity tools help you get things done. They are the best way to achieve your goals faster and more efficiently. They can help individual remote workers save time, improve productivity, and boost engagement. If you work in a team, they keep everyone on track and help improve collaboration. There are free and paid productivity tools with various features that increase your efficiency at work. Productivity apps can help with planning out your day, communicating with teammates, organizing your To-Do lists or keeping notes, recording ideas as they come up before you forget them, or even getting into the right mindset for focused work sessions by blocking distractions.

Time Management

When planning your day, it's important to know how much time you need for each task. If you know it will take 2 hours to complete a task, then schedule 2 hours for that task. Don't just make room for the amount of time you think it should take. It is always better to give yourself more time than you think you need because tasks often end up taking longer than expected. Another thing that can cause your daily tasks to take longer than planned is the interruptions that are typical when working remotely. Your bandmate calls and wants to talk about the show he's trying to book at Arlene's Grocery in a few weeks so he can promote his new single, and suddenly two hours have passed since your last cup of coffee and your morning has disappeared into a haze of emojis.

Goal Setting

Setting goals is also important to track your progress. Even if you don't feel like you're getting anywhere, seeing what you've accomplished in writing may help motivate you. Also, try using SMART goals. They are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely. The more specific the better; a goal like "improve my SQL skills" is not as effective as "write 10 SQL queries a day for the next week." An example of a SMART goal would be: "I will write 5 articles on Medium every week for three months."

Email inbox management

It's easy to let your inbox become an unmanageable pile of papers and emails, but there are small things you can do to make it run more smoothly and also keep it from becoming your to-do list. For instance, create a system for labeling and filing emails that you want to mark for later. Any email subject line that begins with "To Do", "Note", or "I need" is fair game. Anything in this category should go into the label system. You should also set up filters so that all these pieces of paper have a place where they can be organized by their labels. There's no reason why you shouldn't use email as your primary method of communication. However, don't make a habit out of filing important documents in your inbox, especially if you only access them once in a while. Save these documents on Google Drive instead, which makes them easily accessible when you're ready to work on them again.

Collaboration

Collaboration is one of the most important aspects of a good remote workflow. You need to communicate with your team in order to keep everyone up-to-date on what's going on and where things stand. You also need to collaborate on projects. For example, you may need to discuss and review code, or share some ideas about a design. Real-time communication tools have become very common these days, and they're important for working remotely. In other words: don't use email as the only way of communication in your team! Here are some popular tools that can help you communicate better with your team:

Project management

Project management is an important part of any business. Project managers are the ones who coordinate and plan projects, assign tasks to members and ensure that all tasks are completed on time. A good project management system can save you time, increase productivity, and reduce overhead costs. But there are so many choices out there! Do you choose a full-featured solution with bells and whistles? Or should you go with something simple? We've gathered up some of the best options for remote developers to get you started!

There are tools that can help you do your best work as a remote developer

As a remote worker, being able to be at the office every day isn't always possible—and that's where tools like Basecamp come in handy. Basecamp is free to use, but it requires you to sign up for a free account. Once you have your account set up, the tool becomes extremely helpful. The basic features of Basecamp include:

• It helps share work with others (via email attachments) and manage projects. It also allows you to keep track of all your tasks for a given project and organize them into different chapters or "buckets." This makes it easy to see what's coming up as well as what's been completed on any given project in order to stay organized from start to finish.

• It alerts you when there are new messages related to an upcoming task so you can see what you need to do next before starting something new.

• There is also a useful feature called "status updates" that lets other team members know what stage of the process is happening right now without having to dig through email attachments or other written communications.