As a virtual assistant I am called on to use many organisational tools in my work, so for this blog post I thought I would write about some of the tools of my trade that make my work a little easier. Got some favourite ways of being organised and staying on top of things? I would love to hear from you about the tools of your trade too.
Asana
Asana helps to coordinate work across teams by bringing tasks together to ensure nothing falls through the cracks. If you are familiar with yoga you may also know that Asanas are yoga poses or yoga postures, with The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali defining ‘asana’ as ‘[a position that] is steady and comfortable’ but for more of that you need to read someone else’s blog post. Asana enables teams to stay organised and connected by bringing them together in a shared online workspace. Within this space, tasks can be detailed and assigned to staff members, collaborators can update one another on their progress, timelines show how work maps out over time, while boards make it easy for your a team to focus on tasks currently at hand.
Slack
Slack is a messaging app that connects people to information and other people in an online unified workspace. Slack allows you to message your colleagues and collaborate, as you would in person, in workspaces known as channels. The system supports asynchronous work, that is work that is not simultaneous or concurrent in time, meaning you can access the information you need in your own time, regardless of your location, time zone or function; ask questions; catch up with new developments and share updates without having to coordinate schedules.
Dropbox
Dropbox provides a centralised place to securely store documents, manage data access and work together on projects. The system allows colleagues to work from anywhere, knowing their work is backed up in the cloud and large files such as videos, graphics and audio can be shared easily too.
Calendly
Calendly is a hub for scheduling meetings, eliminating the hassle of back-and-forth emails and giving you control over team scheduling with a standardized, scalable process. It’s secure, easy to manage, and integrates with your team’s favourite tools, so you can get everyone working as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Doodle
Doodle is an online scheduling tool which is used for organising meets. If you have ever had to schedule a date or time for a meeting between just a few people, you know that can be hard enough and scheduling meetings with large groups of people – even worse. Doodle offers several different ways to set up polls and surveys that will help you quickly and efficiently set up your next meeting or event. With Doodle you can create group meetings, 1:1 meetings and set up personal bookable calendars.
Canva
Canva is an online design and publishing tool with a mission to make complex things simple, empowering anyone, to design anything and publish anywhere. Canva houses thousands of free templates that include flyers, cards, business cards, resumes, invitations, letterheads, newsletters and much more, for easy graphic design and the drag and drop interface allows users to customise these by uploading their own images, dropping them into the template and saving the file to your computer.
Loom
Loom is a video messaging tool that helps you communicate through instantly shareable videos. With Loom, you can record your camera, microphone and desktop simultaneously and share your video through Loom’s patented technology, which again enables asynchronous work.
Descript
Descript enables users to record, transcribe, edit, mix, collaborate and master audio and video in the same way as a document. It is the world’s first audio word processor, allowing users to view and edit any audio file as text and converting text to audio too.
GroupGreeting
GroupGreeting allows users to create a digital card and have multiple people sign it. Not only is this great for teams who work remotely but anyone who have ever tried to get a paper greeting card signed and passed around an office without recipient seeing it, will understand the benefit of this one. GroupGreeting is easy to use, with unlimited space to sign and a video messaging tool is available too.
Sources and further information
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