Working remotely can be both beneficial and challenging. The beneficial part is that you can work at any location you want and call your own hours. However, the challenge is that issues might arise regarding team building, team collaborations and team communication. Remote jobs have lots of perks, but it also takes a great deal of self-discipline and time management to succeed.

Nevertheless, innovative technology offers a broad range of tools to turn remote work into a less challenging affair. Technology makes it possible for individuals to get the same job done wherever they are in the globe. This is why most business owners aim to apply this technology to help their employees deliver tasks on time and foster team spirit.

When working remotely, there is the flexibility to do your best in any environment you may find yourself, but you still need the right tools to defeat the challenges that remote work presents like time management.

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Management Tools to Plan Your Time Working Remotely

1. ProofHub

ProofHub is a digital project management software that is trusted by hundreds of remote teams to bring everything in one place. Team members can have smooth cooperation with fellow team members as well as with customers. ProofHub has many attributes such as online proofing, communications, chat to share feedback, and remote task management with just one click.

ProofHub is an all-in-one remote task management software, which is necessary for teams that desire and demand a higher level of management competency.

2. Timely

As an automatic time tracker, Timely offers remote teams full work visibility with minimal effort. It automatically records everything remote employees work on — from documents and communication apps, to meetings and emails — and uses AI to draft time sheets for them. Crucially, it doesn’t invade employee privacy and professional dignity to get there; no data is shared with colleagues without an employee’s approval.

By seeing exactly where their time goes, remote workers can create effective schedules that actually reflect the time required to complete different tasks. Real-time dashboards also make it easy for managers to check remote worker activity and capacity — which are both essential for balancing remote workloads and preventing burnout.

3. Slack

Slack is a messaging remote work tool that allows making company-wide announcements, giving notifications to everyone on time. It can also be used to create multiple channels and group chats for different tasks with various teams. Slack is a digital platform that aids in communication among members of a team, allowing them to share documents, knowledge, ideas, opinions, for a smooth working relationship.

It brings all the team activities and communication in one place, making managing remote employees so much easier. Slack also offers fully equipped apps for iOS and Android devices. It is an excellent way to foster time management and collaboration among small teams.

4. Dropbox

Dropbox is also an essential tool for sharing files and collaboration. It is a modern tool that offers various useful features for managing remote employees. Remote workers can easily synchronize, share, and collaborate on documents. It permits sharing large files — PowerPoint, Photoshop, scanned invoices, and PowerPoint presentations.

5. Teamdeck

Teamdeck is a resource management solution, so the focus here is on the people and how they work. It provides answers to questions like “who is available today and who’s on vacation?”, “what’s the workload of different team members?”, or “who’s been struggling with overtime recently?”, giving managers some much-needed visibility into their remote team’s well-being and performance.

What’s in it for remote employees. For starters, they can log their availability, plan their time off, and log their working hours. This also simplifies remote communication: nobody is going to ask you whether you’re working on a given day. Digital nomads on the go are able to conveniently track their time with a mobile time tracking app Teamdeck provides. Seeing their timesheets and being able to analyze work patterns, remote team members can better plan their time in the future.

6. To-do Lists

When you cannot monitor all your tasks, you’re likely to forget most of them. Or worse, always worrying that you left some tasks undone but cannot seem to remember them. One of the rules associated with getting things done is to free your head from confusion and doubt, making a checklist of all your tasks or “next actions” in their order of priority.

Some people prefer digital applications that will notify them of their forthcoming tasks, which includes popular to-do list apps like Todoist or Any.do. To-do lists like Zapier are also an essential tool in top time management for remote work in the market.

7. Note-Taking Apps

In life, there are way too many details to note and recollect for both our business and personal lives. However, note-taking and web-clipping applications enable us to keep all this information structured and shareable. The Evernote application is one such app used by many corporations as well as Individuals.

With the EverNote app, web articles can be saved quickly without exiting your window. It can also make numerous lists and promptly note down ideas and pieces of information, as well as taking snapshots of documents and images related to specific projects.

Another similar application is Microsoft’s OneNote, but it is designed in a traditional notebook form.

Evernote makes each note as an independent document and uses labels for extra alignment, while OneNote shows your notes as labels and pages in a practical notebook — similar to the paper notebooks used in schools.

While Evernote stands out at saving information quickly, it doesn’t trump the outstanding feel of OneNote notebook-like interface.

You can also have a look to evernote alternatives.

8. Everhour

Everhour is a vital tool for keeping track of time and workers’ reports. It enables clear time-tracking features, compatible with several tools like Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Teamwork, JIRA, Pivotal, GitHub, and BitBucket. Everhour can identify who is working on what and when at any point.

The app also has a unique ability to detect if a team member failed to report on time for duty. This can easily be tracked with the help of this tool. Besides, you can receive summary emails every week and monitor the activities of your workers by seeing the number of hours worked by each team member.

9. Virtual Assistants (VAs)

One popular example of a virtual assistant is the Fancy Hands, which is typically used to accomplish various tasks and make good use of one’s time. VAs enable you to execute tasks that seem time-consuming by motivating you and your team whenever necessary. The application can help you put a call through to your network provider and perform research on a topic you’re working on or need, such as the top trending topics on the internet.

You would be surprised at the relief that comes, knowing fully well you have a virtual assistant helping you meet delivery deadlines. VAs can help you boost stronger self-esteem and confidence so that your life will improve. With higher self-confidence, you are more likely to become a happier team player, even while working remotely.

10. Remote Tools

Video Calls, group chatting, and screen sharing have been more than beneficial in sharing ideas among teams. However, some confidential conversations require face-to-face interactions. But since distance does not permit that to happen all the time, you can as well make use of video calling tools.

Screen sharing tool is another essential thing to have when working remotely because, at times, displaying something can be a better way of passing information across than over a text.

Another useful means for remote work is video chats, which gives you a feeling that you and your team members are in the same room. By merely observing other people’s expressions and gestures, and not just hearing their voices, plays a significant role in having interactive and productive conversations.

Google Hangouts, Skype, Zoom, and Appear.in are some of the most popular and capable video chat services out there. Most of these tools can function with an installed extension, but Appear.in is suitable for individuals who dislike installing extensions or desktop applications.

Appear.in offers a video chat experience that is online and browser-based without a need to install the application. You can simply share the URL of your meeting room with your team; this way, they get to join the conversation or meeting. Appear.in is a very reliable way of making quick video calls without any hassle.

Besides, the tools mentioned above allow you to share your screen and exchange relevant information, and the chat room can be locked as soon as all the participants are in to ensure privacy.

Zoom, on the other hand, is also a tool used for video conferencing and web conferencing. While Appear.in looks modern and perfect for small teams or personal use, Zoom can be more likened to an enterprise tool and can be used for conducting seminars and online events.

11. Privacy, Security, and Password Management

Sharing passwords with others can be very dangerous and risky as they might intrude into your privacy and expose you to a great deal of harm. Therefore, one has to be security conscious and avoid disclosing their passwords to others. On the other hand, you might also be willing to share a password with your team members for access to closed-group applications or tools.

For instance, if you use Everhour, you can use password management tools and share them with your teammates, giving them access to documents or tasks specific to them.

• 1Password

1Password is a useful tool, which is used to store all your passwords and logins in a single place. It can even help you create more powerful passwords to ensure that your team will not need to remember. This is effective when new team members are added to the group, granting them quick and direct permissions to see and use the passwords.

• LastPass

LastPass is another tool used when working remotely. It can be used to manage passwords across teams without actually having to share your passwords with each of your employees. Think of it as the perfect password manager for teams.

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Final Thoughts

Working in a remote environment may appear to be challenging because of the difficulty of communicating with other team members. These tools will not only help resolve those challenges, but will promote collaborating, secure document storage, and other useful features.

The tools mentioned above are a few necessary tools to use in planning your time while working virtually. They are also compatible with online translation services like The Word Point in case you work with employees or freelancers of other languages. And they do not require a steep learning curve, making it easier for your team members to work faster, regardless of your location.

Author Bio: Anna is a specialist in different types of writing. She graduated from the Interpreters Department, but creative writing became her favorite type of work. Now she improves her skills while working as a freelance writer and translator for TheWordPoint and has free time for another work, as well. That is the reason she has so many unpublished articles.