7 Free Tools To Work Effectively In Your Home Office

Due to the current Corona crisis, more and more employers feel forced to send their people into home office. In this post I will share with you seven tools with which you can keep working effectively from home.

Organise Tasks

While in a normal office you are constantly reminded of your tasks through conversations and meetings it can happen easily that you lose track of your to do’s when working from home. If you don't want to litter up your desk with numerous sticky notes you can make use of a task listing app. I am using the free version of Microsoft To Do (earlier Wunderlist). The app can be downloaded on your desktop as well as on your phone. The tasks can be split into categories and be enriched with notes, attachments and reminders. As it is possible to invite other users, other colleagues could overlook your tasks and add more, if required.

Sending Bigger Files

Sometimes it can happen that you need to send files that are too large for sending by email. For this I am using WeTransfer. With the free version you can send files of up to 2GB file size as often as you need. Should your file exceed 2GB, you should see whether you can minimize your file or split it into smaller ones.

Signing Documents

If you need to sign an official document you can use the mobile app of Adobe Sign. Here you can save your signature and easily insert it into a PDF document. With the sharing function you can send the signed document to your desired recipient.

Scanning

If you don’t have a scanner at home (like me) you can use any of the multiple scanner apps available. I am using the free version of TapScanner. After taking a picture with my phone camera it adjusts the size and the edges and generates a sendable scan copy. Should you require more scanned pages together you can scan more pages and merge them into one shareable document.

Offering & Holding Appointments

As it is currently not desired to hold appointments physically, many companies are using virtual meetings. Zoom has become one of the most favoured tools for planning and holding virtual meetings. You can invite multiple participants to the meeting and share your screen. Via an additional chat function you can reply to people’s questions in between.

As I am working in sales and don’t want to miss any potential client I am not always waiting to find a suitable appointment for my client and me. Using the Calendly app my clients can book an appointment with me during my work time using my Calendly link that they can find in my signature. Therefore I am presenting in my Calendly profile to which time slots and for which duration I am available. The app can also be connected with my Google, Outlook and iCloud Calender.

Taking Breaks

Also in home office you have to keep your legal break times. Unfortunately, many people tend to move their breaks or take too short breaks when they work from home. In order to keep my breaks I have inserted the time in which I would normally go for lunch with my colleagues into my calendar apps (Google and iCalender). If you have cool colleagues and bosses you can even share this serial appointment with them to show when you would possibly be unavailable or not wish to be contacted with work-related topics. My breaks are announced with the 'Happy Claps' sound from the Alarmy clap. Make sure you turn off snoozing as your breaks should not be shortened by anything.

I wish every home officer all the best. Should you have further suggestions for more useful apps you can contact me directly.