The Best Tools for Remote Work and Team Collaboration

When a team works from different cities and time zones, a regular messaging app is no longer enough. You need a place to assign tasks, hold meetings, store files, track deadlines, and quickly resolve work-related issues. And if you have to stay connected to work while traveling, it’s important to ensure stable internet access — for example, by using eSIM Plus.

We’ve gathered tools that help cover the main tasks of a remote team and keep the workflow running smoothly regardless of where its members are located.

Project Management Tools

Asana

Asana helps you clearly define strategies, map out processes, and plan each day. You can customize the view to suit your preferences: as a list, board, or chart. Each project is divided into tasks, for which you can set priorities, deadlines, and assign tasks to specific team members.

Large tasks can be broken down into more detailed ones, and with the help of additional integrations, you can estimate how long each step will take.

To coordinate with your team, the app provides many features:

• a chat under each task;
• request forms;
• sharing updates on task completion;
• the ability to attach files, etc.

A wide range of integrations will help you connect the app to the tools you already use: Gmail, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, Salesforce, Jira, and others.

Trello

Unlike the previous tool, this app doesn’t boast advanced planning and workload-management features, so it can hardly be called a full-fledged project management tool. However, for some people, simplicity is not a drawback but an advantage. Don’t want to spend a long time learning how to use complex platforms and just need to get a quick overview of the current status of your tasks? Use Trello.

Progress is easy to track with boards: each task card is placed in the column corresponding to its current stage.

The cards can be used to keep all the relevant information about the task in one place:

• add an detailed description;
• add team members;
• add tags to make filtering easier;
• set deadlines;
• attach files;
• leave comments.

Trello allows you to customize the buttons used to create cards and boards, create templates for recurring tasks, and use automation to set up rule-based commands and triggers. The app is compatible with other tools — Dropbox, Google Drive, Slack, Confluence, Evernote, Jira, and others.

Communication and Video Conferencing

Slack

Slack positions itself as a single platform for team communication for managing team workflows. Here, you can exchange instant text messages, make voice calls (both within Slack and to mobile numbers), and hold video conferences. Creating separate channels can reduce long email chains.

Channels are convenient to use for:

• discussing different projects — only the relevant team members need to be involved;
• communication within and between departments — for example, you can create a channel with IT specialists to discuss software issues and bugs;
• communication with partners and outsourced employees — Slack allows you to bring people from different organizations together in a single conversation.

A key advantage of the service is the ability to integrate with many popular applications. For example, you can manage vacation and business-trip requests using AttendanceBot or Google Sheets, create reminders for important tasks using Google Calendar, and so on. In addition, Slack places a strong emphasis on data protection, which is especially important if you are concerned about digital security.

Google Meet + Google Chat

One of the main advantages of using Google products is their seamless integration with one another. In addition, an important component of video conferencing is data security and privacy. This is one of the key features Google highlights when presenting Google Meet.

Depending on the plan, you can hold meetings with up to 250 participants, and use additional features:

• screen sharing;
• meeting recording;
• smart noise cancellation;
• automatic subtitles;
• live streaming to up to 100,000 viewers within a domain.

Another simple and convenient tool in the Google ecosystem is Google Chat. It is designed for one-on-one and group chats and can be used as a standalone service or directly in Gmail. To manage projects, you can organize Spaces to collaborate on documents in Google Workspace, create shared tasks and events with your team, and simplify work with bots and prompts.

Brainstorming and Mind Mapping

Mindmeister

Whether you’re brainstorming, explaining a complex business process, or visualizing relationships, MindMeister makes it easy, thanks to its simple, intuitive interface and a library containing more than 100,000 templates.

This service also allows you to upload different types of media and collaborate with colleagues on the same board. In addition, thanks to its built-in MeisterTask integration, you can also use it as a task planner. You can assign individual workflow steps to colleagues as tasks, set their priority, define deadlines for completion, and also send email reminders.

diagrams.net

Beautiful visuals and advanced features are certainly useful, but many of these features are available only in paid versions of these apps, and often only on the most expensive plans. On a basic plan, you may even be limited in how many mind maps you can save. If you don’t need advanced visualizations and advanced features, choose the “free, no registration or SMS” option: diagrams.net service.

With diagrams.net, you can create as many diagrams, flowcharts, and mind maps as you like. It provides all the essential tools you need to create them, and all of its features are available for free. With diagrams.net, you won’t be able to collaborate with other users in real time, but the service integrates with Google Workspace, Google Drive, OneDrive, Office 365, GitHub, Dropbox, and others, and also offers many options for exporting the finished result — from a simple link to an image or HTML file.

Time Management and Scheduling

Focus Booster

A simple “Pomodoro” timer that helps you focus on completing the task at hand. You can track the time you spend in detailed reports, and filter entries by date or client. You can also adjust the recorded time manually if you forgot to start the timer.

Calendly

A simple and convenient service that can schedule your meetings for you. Calendly connects to calendars (Google, iCloud, Outlook, or Office 365) and shows when you’re available. Share a link to your scheduling page with colleagues and clients so you no longer have to exchange messages like “When would be convenient for you?” The service has flexible scheduling settings, so you can avoid unexpected meeting requests with just a few clicks, and integrations with third-party apps can help you fully automate the booking process.