Vishal Bhatia
The remote work bandwagon is in full force, and more and more professionals are working from home and needing the right tools and support. With work culture moving in this direction, many innovative productivity work from home apps are coming to market. But with all of these different options, it can be challenging to identify what the best work from home apps are. Especially since different workplaces require different things from their apps. We’ve done the research and evaluated tons of apps, and below you will find our top 8 best work from home apps currently available in 2021. Maybe one will be the perfect one for you!
Best Work From Home Apps For 2021:
Zoom:
Zoom is a proprietary software program that is used for video teleconferencing. Allowing multiple people from around the world to participate in a video conference call. The free plan of this program allows for up to 100 participants on the call and unlimited meetings for up to forty minutes at a time. They have high pricing plans and paid add-ons that allow for larger meeting groups and longer meeting lengths.
Zoom is beneficial in a work-from-home setting because it allows for large groups to have face-to-face meetings without ever having to leave the comfort of home. Face-to-face video meetings can help to take away the awkward formality of trying to have meetings over email. It also allows for remote workers to bounce ideas off of each other in a much more personal and productive way that is just not possible in an email.
Everyone can simply talk like it is a normal meeting. This is exactly what this app is mainly used for, meetings. The app allows participants to share screens and send documents, anything that could be in an in-person meeting can be done in the app but with the added ability to mute the people who keep talking out of turn.
Notion:
Notion is a productivity software. The app was designed to be a platform for collaboration between team members and co-workers. It has modified markdown support that can be used to integrate tasks, Kanban boards, databases, and wikis. The company behind Notion advertised itself as an all-in-one workspace, perfect for note-taking, sharing knowledge, data management, and task and project management. They also describe it as a tool for file management that allows for a more unified workspace, where users can give comments on any ongoing projects, participate in any discussion, and get feedback from other users. The pricing for this program goes from a free plan up to an $8 a month plan.
This program is very beneficial for remote workers and any work from home offices because it allows for easy, convenient, and seamless collaboration. It saves that hassle of looking at a project or task in one app and then having to move over to your email to send feedback or questions about it and then hope the recipient sees it. Instead, it is all in the app, from the work itself to the method of communication.
It is commonly used in offices to allow workers to collaborate on tasks and projects seamlessly without ever having to be in the same room or schedule a phone call or video call.
Trello:
Trello is a program meant to be used as a collaboration tool to organize projects into boards. With a single look, Trello is able to tell you exactly what projects are being worked on, who is working on them, and how close the projects are to being finished. The interface of the app is designed to look like a whiteboard that has been filled with sticky notes, each one representing a task.
In the app, users are able to create task boards with different columns and move tasks around between them. These columns showcase the status of different tasks, Letting other users know what is “done”, “in progress”, or still “to do”. Not only does it help individuals keep their work organized but it helps everyone else know how things are going for them, all without having to send those annoying “any updates?” emails.
This app is used to track workers’ progress on projects and tasks. Trello is one of the best work from home apps because it allows bosses to track the progress of their employees on certain projects and tasks. One of the downsides of workers, not all being in the same office is it is hard to tell how close a project is to being done because you can not easily ask the people working on it. But, with Trello, all the information is right there.
Slack:
Slack is a proprietary business communication software. As they describe themselves, Slack is a collaboration hub for every business from Fortune 500 to corner stores. It brings together the right people, information, and tools to get the work done. Slack allows for different channels of communication that can be organized by topic, project, teams, or anything else you may need. It also allows for direct messaging, file sharing, and voice calls all within the app.
This app is great for working remotely because it streamlines the communication process between people who can be all over the world. Communication between large groups is made a lot easier, all without the need of an email chain, you simply go into the proper channel and send the message.
In the workplace, the app is mainly used for its direct messaging purposes, either one-on-one messages or to large groups, and because the app works on both computers and phones, you can expect a response regardless of where the recipients are.
Toggl:
Toggl is a software developed with the purpose of time tracking. The app is designed to allow you to track your activities on a daily basis across a variety of different platforms. It will provide the user with detailed insights on their productivity and will inform you on areas that need improvement in order to optimize your workflow. The pricing options for this software ranges from free to $18 per user per month, with the more expensive plans providing more features to the user.
This app is beneficial for remote workers because in an office setting it is easier to stay on task and complete your work. But, when working at home it can be easy to get distracted and you might end up not getting as much work done as you needed to. With Toggl’s tracking, it is easy to see where a lot of your productivity is getting lost in the day. Allowing you to identify the problem and fix it before it begins to affect your work too much.
In the workplace, Toggl is commonly used to make sure that workers are putting in all the work in a day that they should be or that they say they are putting in. It keeps workers honest and productive.
Focusmate:
Focusmate is a unique productivity software that is designed to help stop you from procrastinating and actually get your work done. The way the app works is that it will connect the user to another user at random for a video call. The idea being, that the two users will introduce themselves but then go on to do their work silently together. Focusmate claims that there is research that shows having someone else there as you work makes you less likely to procrastinate or get distracted. Both users in the call keep the other user accountable for getting their work done and not procrastinating.
This app benefits remote workers who do often suffer from procrastination, especially those who do not live with someone who is around during the work day to keep them focused. Having someone else there, even virtually, is a great way to keep you working. Plus, the anonymity of the app allows you to not be embarrassed about how much you procrastinate because you don’t even know the other person, and they likely face the same problem. While it is not a permanent solution, since each session only lasts either twenty-five or fifty minutes, and the free version only gives you three sessions a week, it is a unique one. Also, for $5 per a month you can get unlimited sessions.
In a workplace this app is commonly used simply to eliminate any distractions. Since it, according to the app’s website, has over 95% of users reporting an increase in productivity, the results are clearly there, it works. Also, since the users are not supposed to talk to each other outside of the initial introductions, there is no chance for distracting chit-chat that might happen with another person being there in person.
Forest:
Forest is a productivity app that is designed to help keep people away from their phones. It is available on Apple App Store and the Google Play Store, and it can also be downloaded as a browser extension on both Chrome and Firefox. The idea behind the Forest app is to help people overcome phone addictions and help them manage their time in a simple and pleasant way. Users will earn points by simply not using their phones and then be able to use those points to plant real-life trees around the earth.
A benefit of this app towards remote workers is that it keeps them focused on their job and whatever tasks they have to complete. While being in the office it is harder to get away with not doing work by browsing the internet on your phone, it is very easy to do while working at home. It can be very addictive to keep going back on your phone, and soon enough your work will suffer. But this app gives you an incentive to keep off your phone, because you will be helping make the world a better place, one tree at a time.
In the workplace, this app is mainly just used to keep workers productive. It makes sure to keep them off their phones and on the project or task that they have been asked to complete. It is very easy to get your employees to download the app because they don’t want to seem like the jerk who doesn’t care about the planet.
Freedom:
Freedom is an app that can be downloaded that will block certain websites, either permanently or for a certain window of time during the day. You can block certain distracting websites to help you focus on what you need to get done. You can also download it onto your phone to block certain apps you always find yourself going to during the work day. You can even set it to block and unblock certain websites at the same time everyday. So the distracting sites are blocked as soon as the work day starts and not unblocked until the work day ends. It also won’t let you prematurely unblock a site, which really keeps you honest.
This app is very beneficial to remote workers because it can be very tempting to let yourself get distracted browsing the internet while you are supposed to be doing work. In the office it wasn’t as big of a problem because people would see if you weren’t doing your work but at home you can get away with it. It can often seem harmless at first but it can very quickly start affecting the quality of your work. This app keeps you focused on your work and won’t let you get on social media or do online shopping.
In the workplace, this app is frequently used to keep workers working on their individual tasks and projects. This app very easily keeps productivity in the remote workplace up by not even allowing the workers the opportunity to get distracted by anything on the internet.
There you have it, 8 of the best work from home apps to use for your remote workplace. Hopefully, one or more of them seem to be a good fit for your business. In no time your work place will be working remotely almost as well as it was working in the actual office. They will have you wondering why you even bothered with the office, and the commute, in the first place.
If you’d like to discuss your app idea or how your business could benefit the work from home industry, we offer a limited number of free strategy sessions each month. Book your call now or simply call us directly at (770) 274-4482.
