If you’ve been working remotely for the past year or so, you’ve noticed both an awareness and need for great collaborative, productive remote work apps. With the new need for everything from time tracking to designing entire apps together as a team, we’ve had the ability to experience enhanced teamwork even while working remotely.
Here are our top five favorite apps for doing just that:
What is it? One calendar to rule them all! Reclaim is a new app that condenses all your various personal and business account calendars into one nice, neat place.
Why do we love it? Reclaim is so easy to use as it runs the setup for you (with your permission), gathering all your calendars into one place. You won’t lose out on privacy, but your teams will still be able to see how much time you have available for meetings. Reclaim also tracks your productivity, setting up reminders to take lunch breaks and do recaps of your day (allowing you to also focus on your self-care). With their weekly reporting of how you’re using your time, you can discover a weekly schedule that truly works for you and your partners.
What is it? The ultimate project management tool that combines the best features out there into one sleek hub.
Why do we love it? While project managers will geek out the most over their ability to create many different workspaces, views, and incorporate handy apps like Loom and Toggl Track, everyone will love it for the quick and easy way it synthesizes your to-do tasks for the day. We also love it for how individualized you can tailor your notifications, view Gantt charts for project timelines, and easily pass tasks to one another with a click of a button.
What is it? A collaborative UI design tool that marries the best features of Sketch with the social components of a virtual whiteboard. If you’re wondering if you should learn it, we’ve got an article for you.
Why do we love it? It feels like the first design tool to really allow for collaborative idea-making and offer intuitive design creation all in one. While other design tools are still amazing (no shade to Sketch), Figma makes collaborative design accessible to everyone on a team. Marketers and product managers can leave comments. Copywriters and editors can update their copy in real-time. And everyone can use their “FIGJAM” feature to brainstorm together live. Figma truly does bring everyone together to create something great.
What is it? A platform for collaboration and team product creation—think Slack meets Google Drive.
Why do we love it? The Artisan Marketing team uses Basecamp for our everyday collaboration, to both share files and to weigh in on creative work. No shade to Slack, but Basecamp’s interface is cleaner and makes for fewer distractions during the workday. We feel like it keeps us all up-to-date daily, makes projects easily accessible, while also allowing us to “boost” (or praise) one another's work. We never feel like we’re working in isolation with the help of Basecamp.
What is it? Toggl offers three different products: Toggl Track, Plan, and Hire. While we haven’t tried Plan and Hire, Track definitely keeps us all um... on track.
Why do we love it? Many of our freelancers use Toggl Track to keep all of their time recorded and neatly separated by the client. And when it comes time to invoice, Toggl can tell you exactly how much time to bill for. It’s completely free, but there’s enhanced reporting on the paid platform. Startups and larger businesses will love how neatly teams and individuals can keep track of timing on a project. Managers can better manage their team members' time with enhanced, realistic data from Toggl, eliminating overwork and improving the timing of projects.
Looking for ideal remote-work candidates to help your next project shine? We can help with that.
