5 Work From Home Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed

Hi, I don’t think I need to explain the current events to you, BUT I know that many people have started to work from home because of it. As someone who has been working from home for the past 3-4 years (I love it!), I decided to share some recommended tools you may not be using but should consider!

These tools will help you streamline your communication with your team, organize your day, get your files together and overall just make the transition more smooth.

1. Slack

Slack is known as the “email replacement”. Remember when you emailed your coworker a question and they emailed back with one sentence? Did that actually have to be an email or could it have been an instant message?

With Slack, although it is, well, put plainly, a “chat” tool, it’s so much more. You can have different channels for different departments/teams/projects, these channels can be private to only those team members or public to the entire company. Slack integrates with a ton of other online tools as well which is a HUGE bonus, use it with existing resources!

2. Trello

I don’t know how I organized all my tasks before Trello. I *LOVE* Trello. If it were a person, I’d marry it… Trello is a kanban style list making tool, if you’re not familiar with kanban, it’s the Japanese term for the visual system for managing work as it moves through a process. You’re probably familiar with it if someone in your office is a big fan of Post-Its:

You can use Trello to manage your day to day activities and processes or use it smartly for other purposes! Below you’ll see a Social Media Content Planner I created for just that purpose:

If you want a FREE copy of this content planning system you can grab it here.

Trello also has many free templates you can use to your advantage, everything from accounting to marketing to project management!

3. OneTab

Whether you’re a Chrome user or Firefox user, OneTab is a must-have browser extension (no comment to those who are Internet Explorer users). It peeves me when I see peoples’ browsers having a ton of tabs open, I don’t know why. I keep track of all my tabs using OneTab.

Not only do I use to separate client assets (for example, under one OneTab collection I have the website, social media sites and any other applicable tabs I may need to get an overall view of a client’s web presence), but I also use it to group similar tabs together that I know I’ll need in the future.

4. Zoom

Hate phone calls? Same. I’d rather see the person’s face when I’m talking to them. Zoom is a definite MUST when it comes to working from home. While you can use it for only voice calls, you can also use it for videos, screen shares, recording consulting sessions with clients, webinars, teleconferences, etc.

The free version allows unlimited minutes for 1:1 calls and for groups of 3 or more people, you get 45 minutes free for each session.

Connect with not only your colleagues but with friends and family. Have a virtual dinner with your parents! Share a coffee with your friends.

5. Evernote

I’ve blogged about Evernote before, but that’s just because Evernote is fucking amazing. I pay for the Plus version of the tool and I use it for EVERYTHING. It comes with a Web Clipper, which you can snip parts of webpages, copy the text from an entire page with a click of a button and save it into your Evernote. You can add tags, create folders, use it as a calendar, save PDFs and much more into your Evernote!

The best part is that it syncs with all your tech, so your laptop, desktop, phone, tablet, whatever, will have ALL the information you need at your finger tips. You can also share notes with coworkers/friends and there are Moleskine notebooks that work specifically with the tool!

I literally LIVE ON EVERNOTE.

Bonus Tool!

LastPass

Need a password management tool? LastPass has you covered. It not only works on desktop, but also on your phone. Now you can have crazy complicated passwords and not have to remember them.

Your Turn

What other apps or tools would you recommend? What can you not live without?