Remote Startup: Tools to Work from Home

Hey Builders!

I hope the majority of our community is currently practicing at least some form of social distancing, like working from home. 

Many of you, however, might not be used to working remotely or don’t have an optimized workflow yet to facilitate productive remote work, be it in teams or alone. 

My team and I have been successfully working remotely ever since we started the 100 tasks project and would like to share some of the great tools and best practices we have picked up along the way. 

I strive to set my entire community up for success and therefore decided to share the best tools that had the biggest impact on the productivity of my team and myself.

Most people will put their project on ice for a while - take advantage of this to beat your competition. 

Use this unfortunate situation as an opportunity to refine your workflow with the right tools and to streamline your startup. Automate as much as possible and put systems and standard operating procedures in place for everything that can’t be automated. 

I’ve divided the tools that I recommend you to implement as soon as possible into 3 distinct categories: Communication, Task Management, and Personal Productivity

Communication

1. Loom

Loom was introduced to me about a year ago and I’ve been using it non-stop ever since. It’s simply the most effective way to get your message across and avoid constant miscommunication. Loom allows you to quickly record your screen and then share it with your colleagues. It’s more efficient than sending long slack or email messages by a long shot and often you can also avoid unnecessary meetings through sending a quick loom. 

They had a wonderful response to COVID-19 and removed video limits for all free accounts.

2. Zoom/ Google Hangouts

I believe there’s not a lot to introduce when it comes to the popular video conferencing platform Zoom. However, Zoom’s free tier only allows group calls for up to 40 mins, therefore, I’d recommend using Google Hangouts if you plan on holding a longer discussion. Both services are incredibly reliable, easy to use, and have a handy screen sharing feature. 

Pro Tip: If you plan on talking to a larger audience, use Zoom’s webinar feature.

3. Slack + Doodle

I hope that Slack is already a staple in your regular communication workflow and if not I 100% encourage you to do so. Slack has an abundance of useful integrations, including a doodle integration, allowing you to quickly conduct polls and surveys right in slack whenever a quick and definite team decision needs to be made! 

Drop any other Slack integration that you think is incredibly useful in the comments below!

4. HelloSign

If you’re onboarding new clients, for example, or you just simply want to sign a contract with a contractor then I’d recommend you use HelloSign to sign digital contracts. 

Task Management

1. Notion or Trello

Notion and Trello are both incredible tools that will help you manage the tasks of your team. Trello is great because it has an abundance of integrations through Zapier, for example. Notion, on the other hand, is incredibly useful for building out and managing an entire workspace/company dashboard with progress board, wikis, calendars, etc. 

2. Zapier

There are millions of use-cases for the integration service Zapier that basically allows you to ‘connect’ different apps and services with each other. Try removing as much manual work as possible from your workflow to streamline your business. Oftentimes a simple ‘zap’ can save a lot of man-hours. 

Personal Productivity

1. Brain.fm

If you’re finding it difficult to concentrate at home or ‘get in the zone’ then check out brain.fm’s functional music to improve focus. They have a scientific approach to get you more focused and it has worked wonders for my team and myself. 

2. F.lux

We’re often glued to our devices until late at night, especially if we’re stuck at home the entire day. Most screens, however, emit irritating blue light which makes it harder for you to sleep and significantly decrease the quality of your sleep. Apps like f.lux adapt the color of your display to the time of day, leading to less blue light emission before you’re trying to fall asleep. F.lux is a must-have even when you’re not forced to work from home, but why not stack up some good habits?

3. Forest App

Another app that can significantly improve your focus, through the Pomodoro method for example and through staying off of your phone, is forest. Its gamified approach to deep work has proven to be successful for many. 

4. ‘Do not disturb’ Mode

Even though this is not technically a specific app or service, most devices have some sort of a ‘do not disturb’ setting that mutes all notifications. I recommend anyone who is trying to get some serious work done to turn this mode on throughout your entire deep work phase. In addition to countless emails and messages, at the moment we’re also getting hit with an abundance of breaking news regarding the coronavirus almost hourly. These notifications will literally kill your focus and your productivity! 

5. Alarmy

If you’re working from home you might find it difficult to get out of bed in the morning because there is no hard deadline for you to be at a specific place. I, therefore, strongly recommend the innovative alarm app ‘Alarmy’ to anyone struggling with this. It literally forces you to get out of bed to scan a barcode, for example, in order for the alarm to turn off. 

These few tools are by far not the only ones that you can use to work remotely, however, the tools that we presented are the ones that have had the largest impact for us personally. 

By the way: Please share any other tools that have been making your life easier in the comments below and help out the community! 

We understand, however, that even with all the best practices and tools set in place, your progress will probably still be dampened by this crisis and you will probably move a bit slower than you did before. 

This is the perfect time to educate yourself and your team on how to supercharge your startup/venture building efforts with the 100 tasks system while you’re stuck at home. 

You’ll learn how to set up, launch, and scale your startup in the most in a systemized, efficient, and streamlined manner possible to achieve uber profitability when the situation goes back to normal. 

I’ve worked on the Playbook for the past couple of years now and I'm absolutely ecstatic to finally be able to share this blueprint for success with the broader start-up community.

Seeing as the next weeks will most likely force you to work remotely, I am offering a 100 EUR discount on the Playbook so that all of you motivated entrepreneurs can still thrive and achieve your goals in the most efficient manner! The discount is live on 100tasks.com (no coupon code needed).

P.S: We're looking to publish more of these remote startup articles in the next couple of days. Comment what exactly you'd like to learn about in the comments below.