I’ve been working remotely since before it was common.
Remote work, when done right, works better. Studies show that remote workers are 13% more productive.
But “done right” is the key phrase. Most remote work setups are broken in ways their owners don’t even recognize.
You know what I mean if you’ve ever had a conversation like this:
- “Sorry, can you repeat that? My VPN dropped again.”
- “Sure, I was saying that we need to… Can you hear me now?”
- “You’re frozen.”
- “Let me rejoin… OK, I think I’m back. Anyway, as I was saying…”
At this point, you’ve lost the thread of the conversation, the other person has lost confidence in your ability to solve the problem, and you’ve both lost 5 minutes you’ll never get back.
I think the hardest problems in remote work aren’t actually about the work. They’re about everything surrounding it: communication, coordination, connection, and focus.
The good news is that these difficulties are solvable with specific tools designed to address specific problems.
In this article, I’ll walk through the 30 tools that solve real problems for remote workers. I’ve organized them by the core problems they solve:
- Time Tracking & Productivity
- Communication & Team Collaboration
- Project & Task Management
- File Storage & Document Management
- Remote Access & Screen Sharing
- Hardware & Physical Setup
- Security & Password Management
- Video Conferencing & Virtual Meetings
- Time Zone Management
- Customer Relationship Management & Support
- Design & Visual Collaboration
- Email Management
- Health & Wellness
Let’s get to it already.
Time Tracking & Productivity
1. Sunsama
Sunsama is a digital daily planner that helps you feel calm and focused while working remotely.
Each morning, Sunsama walks you through a ritual of deciding what matters today.
You pull tasks from Asana, Trello, ClickUp, Monday, Notion, or Todoist. You drag important emails from Gmail or Outlook. You see all your calendar events. Then you decide what’s realistic to accomplish.
Once your day is planned, you switch to Focus Mode.
This strips away everything except the task at hand. No notifications, no list of other tasks tempting you to switch contexts. Just the one thing you decided matters.
At the day’s end, Sunsama shows you what you accomplished and how your time was spent.
Sunsama isn’t perfect.
There’s no iOS calendar integration, which is annoying for Apple users. It’s not ideal for complex projects with many dependencies.
However, what sets Sunsama apart is that it acknowledges that we get distracted, miscalculate time requirements, and need boundaries between work and life.
Sunsama Pricing
2. Hubstaff
Hubstaff is time-tracking software that combines productivity monitoring with payroll for distributed teams.
Each time you start work, Hubstaff runs quietly in the background, recording time, activity levels, and optional screenshots.
Unlike traditional timesheets that rely on memory, Hubstaff captures what happens during your workday.
The dashboard shows you exactly where time goes, which projects consume most hours, which team members are most active, and which clients are draining resources without adequate return.
Managers can see productivity trends, while team members get transparency into their own work patterns.
When productivity drops, Hubstaff notices.
Its “Insights” feature detects unusual activity patterns that might indicate someone is gaming the system.
Chris Yates (CTO at Vision Group) discovered his virtual assistant was outsourcing their work after implementing Hubstaff.
Hubstaff isn’t perfect.
Some members report that the monitoring approach can feel intrusive, with one reviewer noting it ‘fosters an unhealthy urgency mindset’, particularly when activity is measured through mouse and keyboard usage.
But what makes Hubstaff valuable is its combination of accountability and automation.
Hubstaff Pricing
3. Rize
Rize is an AI-powered time tracker. It runs silently in the background, observing your work patterns and detecting when you’re in a state of deep work versus when you’re distracted.
After using it for a few days, Rize builds a profile of your focus patterns.
When are you most productive?
Which apps fragment your attention?
How much time do you spend multitasking rather than focusing?
The answers are often surprising.
Rize is less about proving you’re working and more about improving how you work.
Take breaks, for instance. Most time trackers just count hours. Rize actually nudges you to step away when your productivity dips, an approach backed by research showing that regular breaks improve total output.
The privacy permissions are extensive, meaning Rize needs to see which apps you’re using and which websites you’re visiting to do its job. Some find this intrusive.
And while the AI break notifications are helpful, they occasionally interrupt genuine flow states, which can be counterproductive.
Rize Pricing
4. Time Doctor
Time Doctor is a workforce analytics software that shows you what your remote team is doing.
When employees start work, Time Doctor records screenshots, tracks applications used, and monitors productivity levels.
It builds a surprisingly detailed picture of how work happens—or doesn’t happen—across your organization.
The dashboard reveals patterns most managers miss.
Which team members consistently show up?
Who frequently drops offline?
Which applications drive productive work versus just consuming attention?
These questions matter more than the total hours logged.
Time Doctor puts equal emphasis on protecting employees from burnout. The work-life balance metrics flag when someone works excessive hours or shows signs of disengagement before they quit.
With integrations for over 60 apps, including Asana, Jira, and Trello, Time Doctor can track time across your entire digital workflow.
The monitoring aspects create an obvious tension, though.
Screenshots feel invasive to many workers. Some report feeling constantly watched, which creates anxiety instead of focus.
Time Doctor Pricing
Communication & Team Collaboration
5. Slack
Slack is a messaging platform to replace email inside companies.
That’s it. That’s the whole idea.
When you use Slack, all your communication happens in channels. There’s a channel for the marketing team, a channel for the new product launch, and a channel for office memes.
Everything has its place.
This structure sounds obvious, but it solves a massive hidden problem: in remote work, context disappears.
When someone asks you a question in person, you understand why they’re asking. You see their facial expression, know what they are working on, and have a shared physical environment.
None of that exists in remote work.
Slack recreates context through channels. When someone asks a question in the #product-launch channel, you immediately know why they’re asking. The context is built into the structure.
Like everything else, Slack isn’t perfect.
The notification problem is real. Without disciplined settings, Slack becomes an attention destroyer rather than a work enabler.
Many users report feeling overwhelmed: “The possibility of notification overload is what I find objectionable about Slack,” as one reviewer put it.
Slack Pricing
6. Gather
Gather is a virtual office where people have a spatial presence.
When I join a Zoom call, I’m instantly thrust into a conversation with everyone else. There’s no way to have a side conversation or to step away briefly without making it obvious.
In Gather, I can walk my avatar over to a coworker’s desk for a quick chat while others continue their own conversations elsewhere.
The spatial metaphor creates something that’s been missing from remote work: context.
When you see my avatar standing by the virtual coffee machine, you understand I’m taking a break. When I’m at my desk, I’m working. When I’m in a meeting room with three others, I’m in a meeting.
One Technical Support Manager at RITE put it well:
“Before we started using Gather, we sat for 8 hours a day in a Google Meet just looking at each other’s faces.”
That’s insane when you think about it. Nobody sits in a conference room for 8 hours in real life.
Gather includes the features you’d expect: screen sharing, whiteboards, calendar integrations with Google and Outlook, and Slack connectivity.
Gather Pricing
7. Blink
Blink is a mobile-first employee experience platform that connects your entire workforce in one app.
Unlike Slack, which primarily focuses on messaging, Blink combines multiple functions: secure chat, a social media-style news feed, a document hub, digital forms, and single sign-on access to all your other work applications.
The key insight behind Blink is that remote work fragments attention across too many tools. Your calendar is in one app, your chat in another, and the documents somewhere else entirely.
Blink’s analytics reveal patterns invisible in other communication tools.
You can see which communications reach which employees, who are engaged with what content, and where information gaps exist.
The chat function feels familiar to anyone who’s used Facebook Messenger—intentionally so. The learning curve for frontline workers is essentially zero, which matters tremendously for adoption.
However, Blink isn’t perfect for every scenario.
If your team is small (under 10 people) and entirely desk-based, the additional features beyond what Slack offers might feel superfluous.
Blink Pricing
Project & Task Management
8. ClickUp
ClickUp is a project management software that wants to be everything at once.
That’s both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
When you open ClickUp for the first time, you see an interface with thousands of buttons, dropdowns, and tabs.
It feels like sitting in the cockpit of a 747. Overwhelming, but also indicating immense capability once you learn what everything does.
ClickUp organizes work into a hierarchy:
Spaces (for teams), Folders (for projects), and Lists (for categories of tasks).
The power of ClickUp comes from its views. You can view the same work as a list, kanban board, Gantt chart, calendar, or workload distribution.
What impresses me most about ClickUp is its customization.
You can add custom fields to track anything: priority levels, time estimates, client names, or revenue impact.
Then you can filter and group by these fields, creating dashboards that show exactly what matters to you.
ClickUp Pricing
9. Notion
Notion is a workspace that tries to replace all your other apps. When you first open Notion, you see a blank page with a single blinking cursor.
That’s your first hint about what makes Notion different.
Every other app starts with its opinion of how you should work: calendars with time slots, project management tools with kanban boards, documents with formatting toolbars.
Notion starts with nothing. Just a cursor. And that’s the point.
The blank page is Notion’s most radical feature. It’s saying: “You decide how to work. I’ll adapt to you.”
Want a document? Start typing.
Want a table? Type /table.
Want a Kanban board? Type /board.
The same information can be viewed as a list, a board, a calendar, or a timeline. No other tool lets you change views this fluidly.
Unlike most workspace tools, which treat your data as separate islands—docs here, spreadsheets there, tasks somewhere else—Notion treats everything as blocks that can be moved, nested, and cross-referenced.
A task in your project table can contain an entire document. A document can contain a database of customers. Each customer can have their own page.
Notion recently launched AI features, which (unlike many AI products) are genuinely useful.
You can ask questions about documents, generate content based on your templates, or summarize long documents.
Notion Pricing
10. Todoist
Todoist is a task manager that’s been around for 18 years.
That’s the first surprising thing about it. Most productivity tools come and go like fashion trends.
They appear, get VC funding, gain users, and then disappear when acquired by some larger company that either kills them or lets them slowly rot.
Todoist has just steadily improved for nearly two decades.
The second surprising thing is how much thought has gone into something as seemingly simple as adding a task.
We’ve all used to-do lists. They seem trivial. But Todoist’s team has spent over a decade refining the process of capturing tasks “at the speed of thought.”
You notice this difference immediately when using Todoist’s natural language input.
Type “Submit expense report every Friday at 2pm,” and it automatically creates a recurring task with the right schedule.
What I find most interesting is how Todoist handles the tension between simplicity and power. Their solution is to make complexity optional.
You can use it as a basic list or build an entire productivity system with nested projects, priority levels, and custom filters.
Todoist Pricing
File Storage & Document Management
11. Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage that evolved into a collaboration platform.
Before Dropbox, sharing files meant emailing attachments, using FTP servers, or carrying USB drives. Each method required thought about the mechanism rather than the content.
Dropbox eliminated that cognitive overhead. You just save a file, and it exists everywhere you need it.
Remote work exposes the true value of this approach. When your team is distributed across continents, the friction of file sharing becomes exponentially worse.
Without Dropbox, remote workers waste hours navigating permissions, sending links, and explaining folder structures.
The most interesting evolution is how Dropbox expanded beyond storage. It now includes document signing, video feedback tools, and analytics showing who viewed what and when.
Security is where Dropbox truly shines for remote teams.
Dropbox’s approach, encryption at rest and in transit, two-factor authentication, and version history, creates a secure bubble around your files regardless of where they’re accessed.
Dropbox Pricing
12. Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud storage built by Google.
If you’re noticing a pattern here, you’re right. Google Drive and Dropbox solve essentially the same problem: how do you store files so everyone on your team can access them?
The difference is in the details.
Google Drive’s most important advantage is its integration with Google’s other tools. When you use Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, you’re already using Drive.
Those documents live in Drive by default. There’s no “saving to Drive” step.
The second advantage is collaboration. Multiple people can work in the same Google Doc simultaneously.
Drive isn’t perfect, though.
Daniel Garcia, who uses Google Docs daily, mentioned that switching between multiple Google accounts can be confusing.
He’s right.
If you use one Google account for work and another for personal use, you’ll frequently find yourself in the wrong Drive.
Remote Access & Screen Sharing
13. TeamViewer Remote
TeamViewer is remote access software that lets you control another computer from anywhere.
When you use TeamViewer, your office computer becomes accessible as if you were sitting in front of it.
What makes TeamViewer different from VPNs is the directness. VPNs give you network access. TeamViewer gives you control of the actual screen and keyboard. You see exactly what you would see if you were there.
The security is impressive: 256-bit AES encryption end-to-end, two-factor authentication, and single sign-on.
When you use TeamViewer, you’re creating a direct tunnel into your corporate network. Without strong encryption, that’s essentially leaving your front door unlocked.
TeamViewer’s cross-platform support is where it truly separates from competitors.
Most remote access tools work between Windows machines or maybe Windows and Mac. TeamViewer works across 127 different manufacturers of mobile devices, operating systems, and embedded systems.
What I find most useful is the unattended access feature.
Once set up, you can access your work computer without someone having to be physically present to approve the connection.
This solves the most annoying scenario in remote work: needing a file at 10 PM when everyone has gone home.
TeamViewer Pricing
Hardware & Physical Setup
14. Dual Monitors
Image source: Leonardo AI [AI-generated image]
Dual monitors are screens that extend your visual workspace across two displays instead of one.
You might resist, saying, “I can only look at one thing at a time, so why would I need two screens?”
This is like saying you only need one page in a book because you can only read one page at a time. The value isn’t in simultaneous viewing but in the elimination of context switching.
The research on this is clear.
Users with dual monitors experience productivity gains between 9% and 50%, depending on the task complexity. More impressively, they make 33% fewer errors (source).
You notice the difference immediately in certain tasks. Comparing two documents side by side. Keeping reference material visible while writing code. Monitoring Slack while on a video call.
There are objections, of course.
Dual monitors take up desk space. They cost money. They might seem excessive.
But the space issue is solved with monitor arms, which also improve ergonomics.
A common mistake is trying to use both screens equally, constantly turning your head back and forth. That’s not the point. The secondary monitor is for reference, awareness, and context.
15. Ergonomic Chair and Standing Desk
Image source: Leonardo AI [AI-generated image]
Most people vastly underestimate how much damage sitting does. It’s not just discomfort, it’s cumulative physical deterioration.
The research on this is unambiguous. People who alternate between sitting and standing experience a 46% increase in productivity compared to those who only sit.
The most surprising insight is how quickly the benefits appear. I assumed ergonomics was a long-term investment.
But one Progressive Desk user reported, “Since I started to move more throughout my working day, I’ve almost managed to get rid of my back pain” after just three months.
This connects directly to the time-tracking tools we discussed earlier. What good is tracking productivity if your body gives out after four hours?
The mistake most people make is buying the wrong chair. They look for something “comfortable,” which usually means soft. But ergonomics isn’t about comfort; it’s about support.
A proper ergonomic chair like the Hinomi doesn’t feel like a cloud. It feels like exoskeletal assistance.
The ability to switch postures when your body sends the first hint of discomfort prevents pain before it starts.
16. A webcam
Image source: Leonardo AI [AI-generated image]
For those of you who don’t know, a webcam is a camera that connects to your computer for video calls.
In an office, communication happens through body language, facial expressions, and spatial positioning. Remote work strips all that away.
The built-in webcam on your laptop is generally terrible.
This is not an opinion; it’s physics. Laptop manufacturers put tiny sensors behind plastic lenses and expect them to perform in low light.
They can’t.
When your video looks grainy and dark during a presentation, people spend mental energy trying to see you instead of understanding your ideas.
Most people make the mistake of focusing only on resolution. They buy a “4K webcam” without realizing that sensor size and lens quality matter more than pixel count.
What you need is:
- A camera with a larger sensor (1/2″ or bigger)
- A lens that performs well in typical indoor lighting
- A field of view around 78 degrees (not too wide, not too narrow)
The other mistake is placement. Your webcam should be at eye level, not looking up at your chin.
17. Noise-Cancelling Headphones
Image source: ChatGPT [AI-generated image]
Noise-cancelling headphones eliminate ambient sound using active noise control technology.
Remote work exposes a truth most office workers never fully confront:
The world is incredibly noisy.
The neighbors’s screaming. Construction across the street. Your partner’s conference call. The dogs barking across the street.
Most people try to fix this by turning up their volume, which just creates new problems.
What’s interesting is how the technology works. Unlike passive noise isolation (which just physically blocks sound), active noise cancellation generates sound waves that precisely cancel incoming noise.
The ultimate test is this:
Can you take a call from your kitchen while someone runs a blender three feet away?
With good noise-cancelling headphones, the person on the other end won’t hear a thing.
Security & Password Management
18. 1Password
1Password is password management software.
We create dozens of accounts across different services, then proceed to use the same password everywhere.
You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We all know it’s wrong, and we do it anyway.
The math here is brutal. If you use the same password for 10 different services, and one gets breached, you’ve effectively handed over your entire digital life to whoever stole that database.
What 1Password does differently is use a two-key derivation model.
Your password is combined with a 128-bit Secret Key that never leaves your devices. This means that even if 1Password’s entire database were stolen, the attackers couldn’t access your data.
Password managers get targeted constantly. LastPass had a major breach in 2022 where attackers stole encrypted password vaults.
The zero-knowledge architecture is the foundation here.
1Password can’t see your data. Their employees can’t see it. Not even under subpoena. The encryption happens on your device before anything is sent to their servers.
1Password Pricing
19. NordVPN
NordVPN is a virtual private network that encrypts your internet connection.
When you work remotely, you’re constantly exposing yourself to risks most office workers never think about.
That coffee shop WiFi?
It’s an open invitation for anyone with basic technical knowledge to monitor your traffic.
Your VPN creates an encrypted tunnel that makes this virtually impossible.
What separates NordVPN from other VPNs is speed and coverage. With over 7,300 servers across 118 countries, you’ll find a fast connection almost anywhere.
The security features go beyond just encrypting your traffic.
The Threat Protection Pro feature blocks malware, trackers, and dangerous websites before they load.
Five years ago, I’d have classified a VPN as “nice to have.” Today, working remotely without one is professional malpractice.
NordVPN Pricing
Video Conferencing & Virtual Meetings
20. Zoom
Zoom is a video conferencing software that became the default way people talk to each other online.
Few products go from obscurity to verb status as quickly as Zoom did in 2020. “Let’s Zoom” replaced “Let’s Skype” almost overnight, and for good reason.
What makes Zoom different is reliability.
Other video platforms freeze, glitch, or require endless settings adjustments.
Zoom just works.
This might seem like a low bar, but when your entire professional existence depends on being understood clearly by people thousands of miles away, reliability becomes the most important feature.
The ease of use is equally important. You send someone a link, they click it, and they’re in your meeting.
What most people don’t realize is that Zoom has evolved beyond just video calls. It’s now a comprehensive workspace with document creation, whiteboards, team chat, and AI-powered meeting assistance.
The AI Companion transcribes meetings, summarizes key points, and can even tell you if someone mentions your name when you step away. It also tracks metrics like your talk speed, patience levels, and use of filler words.
The biggest limitation for most users is the 40-minute time limit on the free plan. It’s precisely long enough for you to get deep into a conversation before being unceremoniously kicked out.
Zoom Pricing
21. Fireflies.ai
Fireflies.ai is an AI assistant that takes notes during your meetings.
The job of taking notes during meetings has always been thankless. Someone has to do it, but whoever does can’t fully participate in the conversation.
When you use Fireflies, you eliminate this tradeoff.
The AI joins your meeting, records everything, transcribes it with surprising accuracy, and then organizes the information into something useful.
Unlike raw transcription services, which just convert speech to text, Fireflies identifies action items, questions, and key moments.
Three things happen after a meeting with Fireflies:
First, you get a searchable transcript.
Second, you get an AI-generated summary.
Third, and most importantly, this information is automatically organized into a knowledge base that your team can search.
The search is powerful enough that you can ask questions like “What did we decide about the pricing strategy?” and get relevant snippets from meetings spanning months.
Fireflies integrates with everything:
Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, all major CRMs, project management tools, and Slack. When your meetings end, the notes flow directly into the tools where your team already works.
The user experience is dead simple.
You invite [email protected] to your calendar or meeting, and it handles the rest.
Fireflies.ai Pricing
22. Krisp
Krisp is an AI software that removes background noise from your video calls.
Krisp uses a neural network trained on ten thousand hours of human speech and background noise. It doesn’t just filter; it understands what human speech sounds like.
The most valuable feature isn’t the noise cancellation, though.
It’s that Krisp can transcribe and summarize your meetings without requiring a bot to join your call.
Every other transcription service needs to add another participant. Krisp just works with what you’re already sending.
Unlike Fireflies.ai, which we discussed earlier, Krisp focuses first on making the call itself better and second on what happens after.
The transcription only works in English, which is a problem for global teams.
And the free plan’s 60-minute daily limit is just short enough to be annoying; you’ll hit it during your second meeting of the day.
But what most impresses me is how directly it solves a core problem of remote work.
When we started this article, I mentioned that broken remote setups often manifest as communication problems.
Krisp fixes the most fundamental one: the ability to hear and be heard.
Krisp Pricing
Time Zone Management
23. World Time Buddy
World Time Buddy is a time zone converter that shows multiple time zones side by side.
You think time zone is just a matter of adding or subtracting a few hours. Then you realize that time itself means different things to different people.
The mental calculation gets exponentially worse as you add more people from more places.
World Time Buddy solves this by showing you a visual grid.
Each column is a location. Each row is an hour. You can instantly see who’s awake, who’s asleep, and when your working hours overlap.
What separates World Time Buddy from other time zone tools is the interaction model.
You don’t just look up times; you select ranges by clicking and dragging across the grid. Then you can share those selected times directly to calendars or copy them to a message.
Customer Relationship Management & Support
24. Clay
Clay is a relationship management platform that organizes your network automatically.
Remote work destroyed the coffee break conversations and hallway introductions that used to maintain your professional network.
Now, those connections die silently unless you make a deliberate effort to sustain them.
What’s interesting about Clay is that it’s not primarily designed for sales. Most CRMs assume you’re hunting prospects.
Clay assumes you’re maintaining relationships.
Clay connects to your email, calendar, Twitter, LinkedIn, and iMessage. It builds profiles for everyone you interact with and keeps them updated automatically when people change jobs or locations.
What I find most valuable is how Clay surfaces relevant information at useful moments.
When someone from your network appears in the news or changes jobs, Clay lets you know. When you have a meeting scheduled, Clay reminds you of your previous interactions.
The AI assistant, Nexus, is helpful.
Nexus understands your network and can answer questions like “Who do I know in marketing at tech companies?” or “Who haven’t I talked to in over six months?”
Clay Pricing
25. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is customer service software that combines ticketing, live chat, social media, and a call center into one system.
LiveAgent centralizes every customer interaction. Email, chat, calls, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Everything flows into one interface.
LiveAgent’s agent collision detection is awesome.
When another agent starts working on a ticket you’ve claimed, you get notified immediately. This prevents duplicate responses.
When customer emails enter the system, they get routed to specific departments based on content.
VIP customers get prioritized. Bug reports go to developers with the appropriate context. This happens the same way every time, regardless of who’s working or where they’re located.
One feature that surprised me was the performance reporting. LiveAgent tracks resolution time, customer satisfaction, and agent performance across channels.
The knowledge base deserves mention, too. It serves two purposes for remote teams.
First, it gives customers self-service options.
Second, and this is the part people miss, it gives new agents a training resource when senior team members aren’t available to answer questions.
LiveAgent Pricing
Design & Visual Collaboration
26. Figma
Figma is design software that runs in your browser.
Before Figma, designers would email files back and forth, upload them to Dropbox, or use clunky version control systems.
Figma makes design work like a Google Doc.
Multiple people can edit the same file simultaneously. You see their cursors moving in real-time. You can chat directly in the file itself.
What’s interesting about Figma isn’t just that it’s collaborative but that the collaboration is built into its core. Figma was designed for collaboration from the beginning.
Asana reported that using Figma reduced their weekly stand-up meetings by 50%.
Figma Pricing
27. Miro
Miro is a digital whiteboard that solves the hardest problem in remote collaboration: working with visual information together.
When you use Miro, you get an infinite canvas.
The infinite canvas is Miro’s most radical feature. It’s saying: “Your ideas shouldn’t be constrained by arbitrary boundaries.”
Miro knows that some people think in sticky notes, others in flowcharts, and others in mind maps. So it enables all of these simultaneously.
The templates reveal what people do in collaborative sessions.
There are templates for customer journey mapping, technical diagramming, wireframing, strategy and planning, process mapping, and agile practices.
One financial sector Scrum Master called Miro a “game-changer in fostering Agile collaboration,” which I initially dismissed as marketing speak until I saw it in practice.
When a team has members in three time zones, the asynchronous visual nature of Miro becomes not just helpful but necessary.
Kevin Yang at a tech company reported shipping releases 20% faster after adopting Miro for design decisions. The specificity of that number suggests it’s not an exaggeration.
Miro recently added AI features that are, surprisingly, actually useful.
You can transform sticky notes into structured documents or turn rough sketches into interactive prototypes.
I find it telling that over 250,000 organizations use Miro, including companies like Nike, Ikea, and Deloitte.
These aren’t organizations that adopt tools casually.
Miro Pricing
Email Management
28. SaneBox
SaneBox is email filtering software that moves unimportant messages out of your inbox.
SaneBox analyzes your email history to identify which messages actually matter, then automatically sorts everything else into separate folders.
Important emails stay in your inbox. Everything else gets summarized in a daily digest.
SaneBox never reads the content of your emails, only the headers.
The most valuable feature isn’t even the sorting. It’s SaneReminders, which notifies you when someone hasn’t replied to an important email.
Another feature worth mentioning is SaneBlackHole.
When you drag an email into this folder, all future messages from that sender vanish forever.
This is satisfying, particularly for the subscription emails that somehow reappear despite multiple unsubscribe attempts.
However, there is this initial confusion about how the training works, and some legitimate emails occasionally end up sorted incorrectly during the first few days.
But this becomes less frequent as the system learns.
SaneBox Pricing
Health & Wellness
29. Headspace
Headspace is a mental health app that teaches you how to meditate.
When your home becomes your office, your brain loses its natural boundaries.
The context-switching costs accumulate. The Slack notifications never stop. The line between “work mode” and “home mode” blurs until it barely exists.
A study with 21,088 Headspace users found that 23% reported decreased moderate-to-severe stress after eight weeks.
Headspace divides its content into four core sections: Meditation, Sleep, Stress, and Mindfulness.
The meditations range from 4 minutes to 30 minutes, with most under 10. This matters tremendously for remote workers as you can’t always find 30 minutes, but you can find 5 minutes between Zoom calls.
One therapist who reviewed Headspace noted:
“I appreciated that there were longer and shorter meditations available, as this seems like it would offer an experience that fit most people’s needs and preferences.”
The visual component surprised me the most.
Some meditations show gorgeous national park scenery while you listen. After staring at code or documents all day, your visual cortex needs different input.
Headspace Pricing
30. F.lux
F.lux is software that adjusts your screen’s color temperature based on the time of day.
You probably don’t realize it, but your computer screen is lying to you. It’s designed to look like the sun regardless of whether it’s noon or midnight.
This is terrible for your sleep and, by extension, your work.
The science is straightforward:
Blue light tricks your brain into thinking it’s daytime. When your brain thinks it’s daytime at 11 PM, it suppresses melatonin production, and your sleep suffers.
F.lux fixes this by automatically warming your screen’s color temperature at sunset and returning it to normal at sunrise.
The transition is so gradual that you barely notice it happening.
With F.lux, you can set your preferred daytime and nighttime color temperatures, transition speed, and even temporarily disable it for color-sensitive work.
The most interesting capability is F.lux’s integration with smart lighting.
If you have Philips Hue lights, F.lux can control them to match your screen, creating a unified lighting environment that shifts throughout the day.
The Remote Work Paradox
Most articles about remote work tools end with a pitch to buy everything listed.
I won’t do that.
The truth is that you don’t need 30 tools. You need the right 5-7 that solves your specific problems.
Remote work fails when people try to recreate the office experience virtually. It succeeds when people embrace its differences and build new workflows that take advantage of them.
Start with the fundamentals:
- A tool to manage your time
- A tool to communicate with your team
- A tool to organize your work
- A tool to protect your security
- A tool to care for your body
Everything else is an optimization. And optimizations only matter after the fundamentals work.
Look at your most frustrating moments during remote work. Those breakdowns will tell you exactly which tools you need.
If you find yourself saying “I can’t hear you” every call, get a good microphone before worrying about project management software.
If you’re constantly searching for files, fix your storage system before optimizing your email.
A better way to manage projects and clients for freelancers
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