When you travel for work, you rely on your phone far more than when you’re in the office. Apps have allowed remote workers to work productively outside of a traditional office environment. Choose the right Android apps and make your remote work life a breeze.
Working Remote Tips and Tools
If you haven’t already, check out these five popular apps for making work on the road faster and easier than ever before.
1. Evernote
Evernote is an essential app for remote workers. You can boost your own productivity and keep a remote team connected at all times. You can write a note and share it instantly with colleagues, using the Space feature. Evernote works as your personal assistant, reminding you of tasks and projects to ensure you complete your work on time.
Use Evernote’s web clipper feature to save articles and web pages for easy reference later. Evernote is also a digital rolodex. Instead of keeping a wad of business cards in your drawer, carry them around digitally in Evernote. Take a photo of the business card and the optical character recognition system will read and store the text on the card so you can search the information whenever you need.
Evernote is also ideal for keeping a copy of important documents such as your passport number and insurance details in case you’re away and need access to the information. Best of all, Evernote syncs across all your devices – phone, tablet, and computer – so you can access your information wherever and however you want.
2. Google Hangouts
When you’re away from the office, you want to stay in contact with your team as per usual. Google created Hangouts because it estimates that by 2020 more than half of the workforce will contribute remotely.
Hangouts is ideal for communicating with large, remote teams. The Meet feature is an easy way to hold video conferences and the app is accessible on any device and integrates with all of Google’s other apps.
The chat function is a great way to get instant project updates from your remote team. You can also share files straight from Google Drive. Hangouts also allows you to book meetings on your Google calendar and even find flights.
3. Todoist
When your to do list is longer than your arm, you need an app to keep track of all your tasks. Using an app is far safer than writing your list on a scrap of paper because chances are you’ll lose the list before you’re half way through.
Todoist allows you to enter a task and give it a due date or a recurring due date. Arrange your tasks into projects and assign it a priority level so you know at a glance what your most important tasks are. Synchronise Todoist across all your devices so tasks are ready for viewing and updating whether you are on your phone, computer or tablet. Todoist lets you share projects and assign tasks to your team - you’ll receive notifications when changes are made to shared projects. You can also log comments and updates within the project for team members to see.
4. LastPass Password Manager
It’s nearly impossible to remember all the passwords you have for work. And when you are out on the road, there’s the added pressure of not forgetting them. LastPass does the remembering for you. If you don’t want to think of yet another strong password, leave it to LastPass to auto generate a long, randomised password for you.
But it’s not just passwords LastPass stores. You can enter the details of your insurance premiums, memberships, passport numbers, bank accounts and important notes you might need access to when working away from the office.
If you shop online for work, you can use the LastPass’ digital wallet feature to autofill billing, delivery and payment details so you never need to type in your business address or pull out your work credit card. You can add multiple credit cards to separate work and personal expenses. LastPass also allows you to share selected passwords with colleagues.
5. Expensify
When travelling for work you often rack up business expenses. Between buying your meals and paying for parking, you can return home with a wallet full of expense receipts or worse, no receipts because you lost them. What you need is an app to keep track of expenses and save you time on paperwork for reimbursing or claiming on your tax return. Expensify has unlimited receipt scanning and integrates with a range of accounting and HR software.
If you are looking to purchase a new rugged Android smartphone or rugged tablet to work remotely, call one of the experts at Roaming Tech on 1300 131 933 or contact us online.