🐝 Bee Productive Remotely

Unfold Weekly Presents...

Future of Work

With the World Series around the corner, the NFL in full-swing, and your new COVID puppy’s constant bathroom breaks, how can you stay productive while working at home? As someone who primarily worked remotely before the pandemic, I have a few generic tips to enhance productivity…or at least your personal comfort:

1. Separate your work space from your living space (boring… I work wherever, 👑 of the 🏰)

2. Dress for the office 👚 (sweats count!)

3. Set regular breaks to break the monotony (actually a good one - pet your dog, walk to Starbucks, play Overcooked with your significant other)

4. Invest in a proper work station, charging your company all the bells and whistles: multiple monitors, an external keyboard, a standing desk, or a robot assistant 🤖.

Whether these tips resonate or not, it raises the question - can workers be more productive working from home? The number of studies rising from the pandemic will be vast over the next few quarters, but researchers have already looked into this:

• Are Companies More Productive in a Pandemic?

• Working from Home Increases Productivity?

• The Remote Work Experiment that Upped Productivity 13%

SaaS Weekly

With countless “To-Do” and calendar apps, the productivity landscape can be extremely overwhelming. While we can’t list every available software, we’ve sought to gather some of our favorites below:

For general productivity (efficiency, efficiency, efficiency):

• Evernote - combines productivity elements across numerous areas including meeting notes, web pages, projects, to-do lists

• Basecamp - company specific productivity and project management that was built for remote working

For project management (keep you and your teams on track):

• Asana - collaboratively organize projects, priorities, and get work done

• Trello - boards, lists, and cards enable you to organize and prioritize your projects

• Monday.com - manage projects, workflows, and daily activities with your teams (as see as a sponsored post on your Instagram feed 📷)

• Notion - all-in-one work space for notes, tasks, and project management (a free tool we relied on heavily for creating this newsletter and keeping our distracted team members on target)

For automation (more results by doing less):

• IFTTT - helps all of your apps and devices work together, automatically

• Zapier - connect apps and automate workflows

• Tray - general automation program to integrate your entire stack

• Integromat - online automation program to reduce manual input to common processes

Productivity crosses many functions within organizations as there are countless products out there that we have not covered here.

Still confused? Many of these SaaS products offer free trials. Let us know what works for you.

Things to Know

There are endless articles, listicles, and picturecles (is that a word?) enhancing your environment and work product. A few of our recent favorites:

• 5 Digital Hacks to Make Working from Home Easier and More Productive

• Working From Home? Here Are 7 Ways to Be More Productive

• 10 Must-Have Productivity and Life Hacks for WFH

Our Personal Tips

Keeping your sanity

We all know that open floor plans can be distracting, but your home is a level above. Food in the kitchen, sports on the TV, kids being loud, video games, 95lbs of cuteness, and whatever else you fancy…

Planning your day the evening before and setting smaller goals to complete before taking breaks is a great way to ensure you’re more productive and focused throughout the day. Also, the bear cub above appreciates a couple of walks, and shows his gratitude by staying quiet for most of the day...also works with your significant other!

Mix in activity in your inactive days

As an active person, it can often be difficult to spend 8-14 hours seated at your desk (or kitchen table) with minimal movement. With gyms closed and no Peloton 🚴 even the smallest movements can help break-up a sh*tty afternoon. Each day, I set time to walk, whether to get coffee, grocery shop, or simply look at the boats on the marina, pretending I’m in a melancholic music video 💭. Once I get those endorphins going, my work practically does itself…with the help of the previously mentioned tools and software.

Readers - do you have any actions you take to increase productivity and keep your sanity during remote working? Let us know, and we may feature your story in the next newsletter!