The far-reaching implications of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a major shift in how people travel, work, and conduct business. One of the more noticeable aftermaths of the pandemic is the surge in remote working, which includes working from home, hotels, and cafes. Some even take it further by booking a flight ticket and heading off to some exotic location for a workation.

While remote work arrangements do offer a certain degree of freedom and flexibility when compared to the conventional working scheme, steps need to be taken to ensure productivity is maintained. 

Here, we take a look at 5 essential productivity apps you can use to boost the level of productivity for both you and your team.

Slack

At first glance, Slack may appear simply as a messaging app allowing team members to communicate via text messages in real time. In reality, Slack is a collaboration tool that helps brings together various applications in a single platform. 

Slack also features internal discussion threads, to chat in instant messaging with team members and to create private groups to communicate with certain members only, effectively setting it apart from other messaging apps.

Slack also has a search function, a document download/import tool as well as an analysis system that can produce a report on usage statistics about other members.

Asana

When working in a team, the ability to manage various projects and assign multiple tasks is simply crucial. One of the more popular apps in this category is Asana, a user-friendly app allowing up to fifteen collaborators to work on a single workspace for free. 

Asana enables team members to assign tasks and subtasks, as well as set their expected completion dates. Additionally, Asana also has a search function to locate past and existing tasks which may help users to gain insights into their productivity. 

PureVPN for Teams

PureVPN for Teams is designed for small businesses and remote workers needing secure access to resources. It features a centralized dashboard for easy management and allows assigning dedicated IPs to employees, ensuring safe and streamlined remote operations.

Evernote

A refined note-taking app such as Evernote will prove useful in organizing your notes and managing your tasks. What the app does is centralize all notes, regardless of the format or device used for later review. In short, Evernote allows users to easily add text, audio, PDFs, and images and share them with their team members. And Evernote time tracking integration allows you to track time for each of your projects.

Google Meet

While text messages and one on one video calls are usually sufficient to maintain communication, face-to-face exchanges involving multiple team members are at times called for to take stock of the progress or to find fresh ideas. One of the most effective ways of doing this and having the whole team available at the same time is by holding a video conference through Google Meet. 

Google Meet offers a secure video conferencing platform, meaning all data transferred during the meeting is encrypted, for free (up to one hour with up to 100 participants). With just a few clicks, you can start a meeting via video, voice, or content sharing.

Drag

Email management can pose a challenge, especially if you need to manage multiple email accounts. The Drag app allows you to seamlessly manage your emails. Simply install the Drag app’s Google Chrome extension and you’re good to go.

Now you can compose emails with a personal touch using custom email templates for Gmail. Drag’s email editor makes it easy to create templates for the most frequently sent emails. The app also enables you to add unique information in custom fields.

You can schedule an email follow-up to get the answers and conclude. This increases the response rate of the emails you send.

This app’s email tracking feature notifies you when and how often the recipient opens your email. Turn tracking on and off with a single click.