Technology has proven both a blessing and a curse in today’s business world. While it has made getting information and communication lightyears easier, it has also proved an insufferable distraction, a time-suck, and an inefficient source of headaches and confusion about plans and deadlines. Email has been the main culprit of this epidemic, as teams routinely use emails in place of a phone call or face-to-face meetings in some cases, and in others, they use their emails as chat or IM services, thereby gunking up people’s inboxes for unnecessary two-word responses. If you’re looking for some apps to keep your team cohesive and on the same page besides email, here are some ideas for you.
Slack | If your team needs an organized chat service, Slack has been waiting for you. Unlike Skype, which was designed for personal and recreational use, Slack was designed with teams and businesses in mind. Within the app, which works both on desktop and on mobile, teams can relegate discussions to certain relevant “channels” and carry out private chats as well so that small discussions don’t take up valuable inbox space.
Trello | To keep your team all on the same page with the progress of certain activities, especially when there are lots of moving pieces that need to coalesce in the end, Trello will do the legwork for you. The app is organized into virtual piles of cards that each have to-do lists, color-coded member assignments, and ways to chart progress that everyone can access.
Boomerang for Gmail | When emails are necessary, it’s important for the sender to ensure they get a response from the recipient before moving forward. Boomerang installs directly into Gmail accounts to alert senders if their emails have gone unresponded to. That way, the sender can either resend the message or pick up the phone. Boomerang is invaluable for making email more efficient again.
When I Work | This app was designed to meet all your scheduling needs. Email chains, unread texts, and quickly-changing information are the bane of managers’ existence when trying to schedule workers for their shifts or for finding meetings times with clients. When I Work is a comprehensive platform that makes scheduling and communication easy as pie.
Toggl | Keeping track of time spent on a project or assignment has never been easier with Toggl. The site/chrome extension makes it simple for workers to track their labor and charge or adjust their time budgets accordingly. It’s transparent, and it lives right on the Chrome extension bar.
