How to Boost Productivity With Remote Work Tools.

Remote working has a lot of benefits to companies and individuals — and a few challenges. Of these, maximizing productivity is essential. Productivity tools can help you and the people you work with be as productive as possible — whether managing a remote team or working remotely yourself.

What you’ll learn

• what remote work is
• how productivity tools can help with remote work
• essential remote work productivity tools
• tips for being productive when working remotely
• choosing productivity tools for remote work

What is remote work?

Remote work can include any working arrangement where someone works in a location away from a company or organization.

The location of a remote worker can vary, including people —

• Working from home (WFH) as a full-time or part-time employee
• Working from a small satellite office or branch location
• Hybrid working — spending some work time in the office and at home.
• Working on the road — for example, travelling sales representatives
• Contracting or freelancing

What are remote work productivity tools?

You don’t have to be in an office to be productive. Many people find they are more productive and make the best use of the hours in their workday from remote locations. Why? Often because they don’t have the distractions that come with some office environments.

Productivity tools for remote work can be critically important to keep on track with what needs to be done. Remote work productivity solutions aim to solve any pain points. These may include communication, collaboration, document management, and time management.

There are a range of online productivity tools that help to —

• Communicate and connect with your team despite physical distance
• Share files and documents
• Collaborate on documents and projects
• Prioritize and organize deliverables
• Keep up with schedules and deadlines
• Maintain focus in any work environment

Essential remote work productivity tools.

Productivity tools for remote work include features that help with communication, collaboration, file management, time management, and project management. Online productivity tools are often not just a one-stop shop. They may combine one or more features that you need to get the job done efficiently and effectively.

Communication tools for productive remote work.

Productivity tools for communication bring conversations and meetings to your computer or smartphone.

The benefits of using online communication tools include —

• Easy, quick communication for collaboration
• Group or individual messaging to stay connected with others
• Secure messaging and video calling
• Integration with other productivity tools and versatility
• Automation options

Instant messaging platforms and video conferencing apps help with talking to colleagues individually or in groups. Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet are just a few of the popular and well-known ones.

Collaboration — file sharing and storage tools for productive remote work.

Multiple copies and versions of documents distributed amongst people can be chaotic. Access to centralized documents makes life a lot easier. You may have remote access to internal servers or choose cloud-based platforms.

The benefits of collaborative productivity tools and systems for remote work include:

• Workflow management
• Easy sharing and real-time collaboration
• Synchronisation with other devices to work anywhere
• Retention and support of document formats and formatting
• Integrated access to online web applications and software

Most people nowadays have a basic familiarity with Google and Microsoft cloud-based services. These are available if you’ve got a Gmail email and/or have purchased Microsoft products such as Office 365.

Adobe also offers cloud-based collaborative services. Our platforms integrate with our extensive range of apps, and in partnership with many other global systems.

• For business documents, check out Adobe Document Cloud services.
• If you’re a creative professional or enterprise, check out Adobe Creative Cloud. This cloud-based service integrates with the power of Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, and more.

Web-based apps for productive remote work.

Keeping up to date with the latest versions of apps and software can be time-consuming and expensive. Using web-based productivity tools can save individuals and companies time and money and make it easier to work from anywhere.

Some benefits of web-based apps include —

• Easy access from multiple browsers or devices
• No installations and downloads
• Ability to collaborate via the web-based app

For example, Adobe Acrobat web-based online services, are a great way to work with PDFs. By just dragging and dropping into your web browser. you can convert PDFs, Edit PDFs, Compress PDFs, Fill and sign PDFs, Request signatures on PDFs, Password protect PDFs, and more.

Project management tools for productive remote work.

It’s not always easy to stay on task with time and resources when project managing remote work. Project management platforms are designed to keep your deliverables and your entire team on track and manage projects on the go.

The benefits of using project management productivity tools include —

• More efficient project management, especially for remote management
• Efficient team collaboration features
• Document-sharing capabilities
• Scheduling
• Functionality and integration with other apps and software

Project management tools to check out include online solutions such as Airtable, Trello, Asana, ClickUp, and ActiveCollab.

Time-tracking tools for productive remote work.

No one likes to be micromanaged and have every second of their workday scrutinized. However, time-tracking can be crucial, and not just for monitoring productivity. Many businesses, employees, and contractors need to keep track of how much time is spent on a particular task to manage costs and budgets.

The benefits of using time-tracking tools include —

• Monitoring individual productivity
• Acknowledging and providing feedback to remote workers
• Integration with invoicing and payroll systems
• Tracking costs of work performed
• Accurately charging for time spent on projects
• Budgeting and planning for future work

Time-tracking apps to replace traditional timesheets for remote workers include Clockify, QuickBooks Time, MyHours and Paymo.

Tips for being productive when working remotely.

While tools can help you with your productivity in remote work, they are just that — tools. People are still at the core of being efficient with remote working arrangements.

Here are some general tips to make sure you’re doing your best work remotely:

• Know what your tools can do. Take time to explore the app and any tutorials and training. Ensure you understand the different features and how they will work best for you.
• Communicate clearly with your coworkers and collaborators. Miscommunication is easier when you’re physically apart from your team. Try to communicate clearly in a way that can’t be misunderstood. Don’t hesitate to ask for clarification from your teammates on important points.
• Prioritize your tasks to meet deadlines. When you don’t have people around you working on the same project, it can be easy to forget about your priorities. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, try breaking up your tasks into small, manageable chunks.
• Establish boundaries in your environment. Maintain a professional space. This could include talking to family and friends about your availability. Creating a space conducive to work and/or setting aside specific times for work. Digital distractions are especially important to manage.

Choosing productivity tools for remote work.

Factors to consider when choosing the types of online productivity tools that you might need to make it fly include —

• Features — what is most essential, nice-to-have, or may be needed in future?
• Cost — do you need to balance free versus paid, costs per user, per month or annum?
• Integration — can the productivity solution integrate easily with other systems and apps you use to save time and money?
• Device compatibility — do you need productivity tools that work with different devices — desktops/laptops, tablets, and smartphones?
• Security — does the productivity solution have the level of security you need for your information and the system you are working on?

Related content.

Want to know more? We’ve put together a few other articles to help with being productive with remote work —–

• 5 ways PDFs can help improve work productivity
• Collaborate on PDFs and connect your team
• Cloud PDF storage and file sharing — access documents anywhere, anytime