Remote working is more of a movement now than it has ever been. 2020 has seen a change in the way businesses and employees work together.

Did you know that around 16% of companies hire Remote Workers only?

However, working from home does come with its own challenges. Technology becomes an important part of your life if remote working is your way of life and having the right Apps is one absolute way to set yourself up for success.

Keep reading to find out the 7 apps your Mac needs to keep you working remotely, and efficiently!

1. Toggl For Time-Tracking 

As a remote worker, it’s easy to get swallowed by mundane tasks that take up too much of your day. Before you know it, the end of the day has arrived and you haven’t gotten through your entire to-do list, that’s where Toggl comes in.

The Toggl platform allows you to use a timer to track time spent on different projects, you can even start a timer on one device and finish the task on another.

You can use the app to create projects easily and then set up new tasks within each one. The app also allows you to collaborate with team members and even add clients for ease of communication. One of the main features is the export function though, you can export to PDF or CSV on the free version, which is a pretty useful feature!

2. GoogleDuo For Meetings

Communication is key in a remote working environment, and GoogleDuo is a great app for video meetings and voice calls.

The great thing about this app is you can really customize the content you want to send through the doodling ability, which means you can add notes onto notes and collaborate with the rest of the team.

You can create group chats and send audio files, images, or even video notes to all of your contacts that have the app too. It’s pain-free to set your team up on the app, you can read more about it here: https://setapp.com/how-to/google-duo-for-mac.

3. Serene For Managing Distractions 

It’s so easy to take a 5-minute break scrolling Facebook and when you look again, an hour has gone by and you’ve achieved almost nothing! Serene is one of the Macbook apps that can help you manage your distractions.

Not only does Serene start by asking you to set single, daily goals and help you stay focused on achieving that, but also, it helps by blocking out distracting websites, silencing your phone, and restricting access to distracting apps.

The app helps you stay focus for predetermined increments of time throughout the day, with allocated slots for all your ‘distractions’ which in turn means, you’re going to be totally productive!

4. Chrome For Browsing 

We all have our preferred browsers, but here’s why Google Chrome is super convenient and helpful for remote workers:

Chrome works with your Gmail address which means that you can have your browser synced completely to everything you need at a click for work. Bookmarks, passwords, file storage, and more can simply be a few clicks away if you choose to use Chrome and sync it with your email address.

Your logins to software online and important work backends can be stored safely by your sync account in Chrome, saving you time from looking them up or having to reset them when you’ve forgotten.

5. Spark For Email Management 

Emails can be highly distractive as well as time-consuming if the time you spend on them is not managed correctly, and this is what Spark does for you.

Basically, Spark becomes a central hub for all your email accounts. The app helps you to collect and categorize your emails from different accounts. Also, you can snooze emails for dealing with later, have team email accounts, and even collaborate on the same email from different locations.

Spark is the way to go if you’re looking to streamline your email management system and you need help to put together the right system to do it with.

6. Google Drive For Storage and Collaboration 

No Macbook is made with an immeasurable amount of hardware space for all of your files, there will, inevitably, come a time when you need files to be stored elsewhere to free up space. Enter: Google Drive!

With Google Drive, you get an online place to store files, documents, images, and videos with up to 15 gigs on a free account (more if you upgrade)!

Also, this app syncs to your Chrome browser and allows you to collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with other team members. It’s an absolute win when it comes to file storage and collaboration.

7. Zapier For Automation 

Only you would know how much of your day is thrown away on mundane tasks that you should ultimately be able to automate, that’s where Zapier comes in.

Zapier allows you to create ‘zaps’ between apps and automate certain actions.

For example, you can create automation between a spreadsheet in your Google Drive and your Toggl app, so time is automatically logged and you save time by not having to do it manually. You can create a zap to automatically save email attachments to your Google Drive.

With Zapier, the automation world is your oyster!

Apps For Remote Workers

Ultimately, remote workers will have to analyze how much of their ‘unproductive’ time each day can be changed to productive time through the use of the right apps and software to support them.

Some of these apps may not be right for you, but whatever you need, we can almost guarantee that there’s an app out there for it!

Head to the tips and tricks section of our website if you need more helpful content on tools and their alternatives!