The 3 Best Online Tools I used this Year
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While my work has always been entirely online as a virtual professional, the 2020 pandemic has kept me there even more from a lack of in-person networking. For many previously office-based workers though, the working from home situation has been new, maybe exciting or possibly exasperating. Maybe all three.
Working and collaborating online brings new challenges, so I want to share three of my favourite online tools this year, which could help save you some stress as well.
1. Zoom. I know, many of us reached video fatigue months ago but let’s face it, how cool and timesaving is it to be able to connect with a handful or a dozen or more colleagues or friends to have a meeting, share project ideas or have some laughs on a virtual social? To improve your video meeting experience, share this list of Do’s and Don’t’s in video conferencing by @entrepreneur.
Some tricks and functions I’ve learned about @Zoom_us:
a. When your microphone is set to mute, instead of fumbling to find your mouse pointer to unmute yourself quickly, simply hit the space bar on your keyboard. It is so much faster to do!
b. Breakout Rooms allow you to send attendees of a larger group into separate “meeting rooms” for smaller group discussions.
c. Look better: In your video settings you can choose “Improve my appearance” to improve your skin tone or adjust for low light. That’s helpful on your not-so-perfect days.
2. Loom. This program allows you to take screen recordings with audio instructions of anything you do on your computer and easily share it through a unique URL. It is great for sending a team member or client a quick “How to” instruction instead of going online together and doing a screenshare, and means they can watch it anytime. You can also use @Loom to record videos of yourself.
3. Trello. It is a task and project management tool that is easy to use and share with team members. You can create drag-and-drop task boards per project, theme or client, add individual tasks with checklists for each, set due dates and receive reminders of them to your email, and re-assign a task to someone else. @Trello is a perfect tool to list what you and others need to work on and check a project’s progress. The best part is shrinking your To-do list by moving accomplished tasks into your “Completed” board!
All three programs mentioned here have free basic versions and affordable paid plans. Try these, and there are many more useful productivity apps – online tools and programs are your best friend during #WFH to make your work a little easier.
Image: Windows 10 stock photo