Working From Home? Here are the Digital Tools you need to work Smarter Remotely

|


TLDR: We've scoured the web for the best digital tools so that you don't have to.

The majority of Singaporeans have been working from home since the pandemic and chances are, you're reading this from the comfort of your own home. Companies have adopted a new normal alongside government restrictions to allow employees to work from home.

The 9-to-5 is dead and is slowly getting replaced by flexibility (cheers to waking up 5 minutes before morning check ins). 

Source: Memes


WFH is here to stay, but does that mean that employees are expected to work longer hours and be available around the clock? probably not, but this is a reality for some, sadly.

Productivity and satisfaction levels are crucial factors in ensuring that employees are in top condition to work efficiently and produce good results.

Burnouts do happen. Thus, the need to choose the right digital tools for remote employees becomes more prevalent as teams are now more agile and flexible in their work.

Check out this article to find out how you can address team burnout!

Working from home comes with many unforeseen challenges and distractions, but this doesn’t mean you and your team can’t work smart — in fact, with this tools, you can even be more efficient from home! 

Here are the digital tools to help you work smarter remotely.


1. Tuple: The best pair programming tool on macOS

Source: Tuple

With remote development on the rise, developers can now work in pairs using Tuple to support their projects. Go beyond generic screen sharing and get work done remotely in real-time.

You and your party can both gain control of the mouse and keyboard, and switching control only takes one click. Boost efficiency in your teams and experience seamless collaboration every time.

Tuple prides itself as “a fast, lightweight tool built for nitpicky developers like ourselves. One that sweats the details programmers care about like efficient CPU usage, no UI chrome, and a 5K-quality video stream.”

Get tips, tutorials, and resources about Tuple’s pair programming guide here.

2. Microsoft Visual Studio Live Share

Source: Visual Studio

Live Share helps you to work with others the way you want to. The primary goal is to enable developers to collaborate more easily with an engaging and truly personalised experience. It enables you to quickly collaborate with a friend, classmate, or colleague on the same code without the need to sync code or configure the same development tools, settings, or environment. Other features include co-debug, real-time code reviews, have an audio call, chat with your peers, share terminals, servers, and more.

3. Jell: Daily Standups for Technical Teams

Source: Jell

Did you know that Jell was created to improve remote work? It’s the perfect digital tool to set goals and keep track of progress for technical teams. Agile teams conduct daily stand-ups, check-ins, or OKRS from the tools they’re using. Jell makes it easy for your team to check-in by fitting into your existing workflow.

Streamline your daily work, find out how your team is doing on sprints, and identify any blockers standing in the way. Individuals can recap their week when they view their reports in one place with key accomplishments and updated stats.

4. Trello

Source: Trello

Trello is powerful, fun, and most of all, easy to use. Notable for their boards, join over a million teams worldwide using Trello to manage projects efficiently while working remotely. 

Start a Trello board in seconds and create lists and cards within the board to organise your work. Grow from there with task assignments, timelines, productivity metrics, calendars, and more. Each small task, called a "card", is labelled with a coloured tag and text. You can also assign cards and deadlines to members of your team and track each card's progress. 

Check out these resources for developers to get started building on Trello


5. Todoist: The to do list to organise work & life 

Source: Todoist

If you wish to declutter your life Marie Kondo style, then you’re in the right place. Todoist is more than a project management tool as it also functions as a task management tool. As one of the most popular, intuitive, and fun task management software, they have a comprehensive list of templates depending on your needs. We must say we’re impressed. From management, development, work to marketing and sales templates, take your pick.

Source: Todoist

Create products, add notes, tasks, reminders, to-do lists, and sync every device with the help of their app. For easier collaboration, you can assign tasks to others too. Boost productivity in your teams when you set the priority of each task and add comments while setting due dates for each project.

6. Krisp: Noise Cancellation and Echo Removal


Source: Krisp

Ever attended a meeting with so much background noise you can’t even hear the speaker? Unproductive and disruptive meetings can happen when we least expect them. To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, Krisp is an AI-based noise-cancelling app that helps remote professionals and teams remove unwanted background noise from both ends of a conference call, including room and acoustic echo removal. You can use it with any communication app (Zoom, Skype, Slack, and many others) and enjoy more productive remote meetings with the fan blowing directly at you!


7. LastPass: #1 Password Manager & Vault App

Souce: LastPass

It’s a common practice for people to use the same password for all their accounts (or is it just me?). This is a bad situation to put yourself into, and we advise you to ditch this practice immediately. 

LastPass is here to provide you with top-notch security while working from home. Protect yourself against potential fraud by having strong passwords for every account across all of your devices.

What if you’re someone who has no idea how to create strong and complex passwords? Well, you don’t have to anymore! LastPass helps generate strong passwords, makes logging in fast and effortless, and can even store important information in the form of notes (e.g. seed phrases or backup codes). 

Get started with their free plan here. It comes with unlimited passwords!


8. Clockify: 100% Free Time Tracking Software 

Source: Clockify

Clockify is a time tracking solution designed for teams that can either be used in the cloud or installed on Mac, Windows, or Linux OS. Plan your hours better and keep track of your time allocation across projects, including leaves and holidays. Hold yourself accountable for time spent on a project using a timer. You can also get breakdown reports by project and user. The best part? It supports unlimited users and is 100% free, forever.  


9. Loom: Video Messaging for Work

Source: Loom

It’s time to let your work speak for itself.

Does your job involve creating instructional videos about a particular process? What about finding yourself in situations whereby you wish you had a tool to show someone what and how to execute a task? Loom is here to do that. 

This video recording tool empowers effective communication at work and helps record your desktop, camera, and microphone. The basic plan is free and allows you to record videos and comment on your own or other people’s videos. 

Learn more about why engineering teams use Loom, and how you can be a part of it too. 

Ok, so that's a lot of tools to make sure that you can WFH like a champion, but are you being compensated fairly for being one? Check out NodeFlair Salaries and make sure that you're not being lowballed!

Source: Giphy


P.S. Join the Smarter Way!💡

Discover real salary data backed by payslips and offer letters.

Our growing community of 800+ tech talents have already submitted their salary data. Put an end to the opaqueness here in Singapore and bring the power back to yourself!

Follow us on Telegram (@nodeflairsg) for the latest Tech Insight, Reads, Salaries & Job Opportunities!

Related Articles