text: Crosby HR | The top 5 Apps to help you work efficiently from home The top 5 Apps to help you work efficiently from home – Crosby HR
  The top 5 Apps to help you work efficiently from home
  Working from home is new to a lot of us, but now with over 60% of workers in the UK remotely working productivity is taking somewhat of a hit. We know that this is just an adjustment period for us all though and once we get used to our new working environments, we will be as efficient as ever.
  However, we have listed some tools to make the process of working from home that little bit easier and faster to adapt to.
  Trello is a to-do list app that for the most part is a free tool (The paid version allows you to have some more premium features but they are by no means vital). It allows you to use the Kanban method of working through all your tasks. You manage each task through stages of completion, so at any one time, you can see with ease where you are on each project.
  This then enables you to structure your day, giving you good points to start new tasks within projects and also allows you to take breaks effectively, as it provides natural stops once a stage of a task is completed.
  Notion is a true workhorse when it comes to Productivity Apps. It is somewhat the godfather as it is great at absolutely everything. It serves almost like a mini intranet, allowing you to create 'Spaces' and pages for all of your work, projects and clients. The real key to this product though, is that you can link all of these spaces together, cross-referencing them. Before you know it, you will have created your own personal CRM.
  However, the drawback to this product, is that you can end up very easily down a YouTube wormhole, trying to make your Notion account the most efficient it can be. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
  There are lots of calendar apps available, but here is why we picked Google Calendar.
  First of all, it is 100% free. No 'addons' or extras, this is completely free which is amazing considering how much functionality this app has.
  The way we suggest using Google Calendar, is to block out your day. To give you a brief overview, blocking out your day (which I am sure we will be doing a blog on very soon) is creating time in your calendar specifically for completing types of tasks or working on specific customers. This way you stop bouncing around from job to job which inadvertently allows time for procrastination, which as humans we are exceptionally good at.
  Google calendar also allows many third-party apps to be linked. For example, ZOOM so you can make meetings and send the invite all from your calendar, rather than having to flick between apps.
  Probably one of the best aspects to google calendar is that you can create multiple calendars. You can manage your home life and your work life simply on one page, to ensure the balance is just right. Currently, with COVID-19, you could even manage your child's home-schooling through your calendar so your day runs smoothly.
  To be honest, we could have picked any of the top file sharing apps. Dropbox, One Drive etc. However, we picked Google's version, due to the fact that we have used the Google calendar. The two work so nicely together, plus it also opens the door to using Google sheets and Google Docs. Both great FREE alternatives to Offices Word and Excel products.
  Google Drive allows your business to be online and flexible, all your staff can see files that you allow them to see. This just makes remote working so easy.
  A great example for how this can really work is; you and another colleague are working on a joint project, rather than having to email each other copies of a document and storing them locally, you can both get to see when the document was last edited, if someone is currently in the document and the document will never change place in the file structure.
  Zoom is a Video conferencing Application. In our opinion, it is the best app for allowing meetings to take place over the internet and still keeping all the functionality and properties of a face to face meeting.
  If we wrote down all the positives of zoom this article would be just named 'Zoom Video Conferencing' so we will list some of the functionality.
  Up to 1000 people in one call
  If you are not already using Zoom to collaborate with your colleagues then make sure you utilise this free tool!
  if you want anymore information about how to become more efficient working from home, or how to manage your employers during this period, then please do not hesitate to give us a call.