We live in a time when having a career as a freelancer and working in a home office are getting widely common. Although it's a favorable setting, working from your home office can present unexpected challenges.
Luckily, at the same time we moved from a stuffy office to the comfort of our home, innovative companies have created great apps that make the transition smoother and help us shine in the new environment.
Wunderlist
Though there are many to-do list apps out there, Wunderlist is popular for a reason. With a simple interface, Wunderlist is an extremely useful tool for organizing your life. The app features and the way it presents your tasks will not overwhelm you.
We all know that time left unscheduled is often wasted. Block off chunks of work time by scheduling them beforehand, so you don’t realize in the evening that that ‘House of Cards’ marathon was a bit too long to actually get any real work done.
Focus
It’s easy to lose track of time spent on your favorite websites when you’re not in an office where everyone is working. With Focus, you can take care of this problem before you even start your tasks. The app blocks the most distracting sites for as long as you set it to and only lets you access them once the timer is over.
It may sound extreme, but don’t underestimate how much time we mindlessly spend on social media and entertainment websites without even noticing. Nip it in the bud by simply blocking these distractions so you can focus on the essential.
Noisli
Working at home often means working in an environment that is bustling with activities. Your family and even your pets can be sources of noise that will hinder your productivity. Noisli is an easy to use white noise generator that has a variety of soothing and productivity enhancing channels -- from the gentle sounds of rain to the calming hum of the wind. Just put on your headphones and enter ‘the zone’.
Evernote
This app is the world’s go-to for handling documents. Together with its companion, Scannable, Evernote has become one of the most popular note taking apps and can act as a bona fide vault for the information you need to keep.
With Scannable, you can easily scan documents using your smartphone camera, and they go directly into your Evernote files. Going completely paperless has never been easier. Evernote also offers a simple tagging function for your documents so you can classify any new paper and find it within seconds even months after you first scanned it.
Streak
Why have a bulky, overcomplicated CRM, when you can integrate a streamlined, simple version directly in your Gmail account? With Streak, you can organize your client communication including the contacts and information shared, and have complete integration with Google Apps.
You can stay completely mobile as both Google and Streak keep everything neatly in the cloud for you. You can save e-mail templates, track mail, categorize mail and recipients, and create your own customized system to best serve your business.
With these apps in hand, handling your time and workflow in your home office has never been easier. There’s no need to get out of your pajamas anymore to run your business. Just log in to these apps, and get brilliant things done in no time.
