Having worked remotely for the majority of my career, I've come to settle on this way of working and gathered a few resources that have helped me stay productive. Below I've shared some resources for people looking to transition into remote work or existing workers looking to improve their productivity. Please feel free to open up a PR and add more resources of your own.
For the most part, focusing was something I struggled with since I was working out of my bedroom and any time I felt tired I could easily retire to my bed and spend a large chunk of time being unproductive. I counter-acted these habitts with some of the following tools
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FocusMate - Productivity web application to enable you do deep work by pairing you with an accountability partner over video for a session of deep and focused work.
- Free Plan: Limited to 3 sessions per week
- Paid Plan: Unlimited number of sessions a week
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SiteBlocker - Chrome extension to block specific websites for a period of time while you do deep work
- Free Plan: Totally Free, No limits or Benchmarks
- Paid Plan: None
As a wise man once said, "what gets measured, gets improved upon" so it's only right that you may want to measure and analyze how you use your time in a remote setting
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RescueTime - Time tracking software for your computer that works seamlessly in the background and aggregates up the time you spent on all programs at the end of each day
- Free Plan: Offers basic time tracking functionality and reports on a weekly basis. see more here
- Paid Plan: Offers time tracking for offline mode, daily reports and distraction blocking software
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Timely - Time tracking software with AI functionality to help you adequately schedule and track your daily workflow. Although built with teams in mind, pretty powerful and seamless for an individual experience as well
- Free Plan: Offers a 14 day Free trial
- Paid Plan: They offer a variety of paid plans ranging from $9 - $20 depending on your needs. see more here
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Time.fyi - I personally like to call this one the everything time app. Time.fyi is an application that really puts all your time needs in one place -- with features like stopwatch, world clock to better help you collaborate with remote team mates, a daily planner to help plan your time through out the day and of course a pomdoro timer to help lock you in focus
- Free Plan: Most features listed are totally free and do not require sign up
- Paid Plan: Paid plan starts from $6 a month and scales for larger teams
Getting accustomed to remote work is one thing, finding companies that actively support remote work is another. Below I've been able to curate a list of websites that make the search for remote companies a bit easier
- NoDesk - Remote company job board
- RemoteHunt - In depth repository of some remote companies
Another wise man once said "Opportunity is like a train, there's always a next one" and I believe the only way to take advantage of that opportunity is to practice rigorously. Here are a few resources I use to practice daily
- Pramp - Pramp pairs you up with practice partners for system design, behavioural, technical and even frontend design interviews.
- Neetcode - Neetcode is a structured curriculum that guides you through learning common patterns involved when architecting data structures and algorithms.
Getting a job in a remote environment can be quite strange. How fo you go about signing contracts, signing off on important documents and sharing these important documents seamslessly.
- reMarkable - Reading off PDF can be a hassle (for me I like to write things down when I read). reMarkable gives you a way to combine both! combine the portability of your digital device with the flexibility of being able to write physically on selected documents. With reMarkable you can sign off documents, make notes inline on your favorite articles, scribble ideas and many more
- Paid Service: reMarkable tablets start off at $279 (a bit pricey but well worth the money). You can also see more offerings here
In a remote environment, the importance of effective communication cannot be over-emphasized. It's important to always be in the loop with the progress of most departments and some tools I've found that help boost productivity in this category are:
- Krisp - Krisp removes background "noise" when on calls enabling you commuincate your ideas and thoughts efficiently.
- Free Plan: Limited to 60mins of the core functionailties of the platform daily
- Paid Plan: Ranges from $8 - $15/month depending on the size of your organization, more details here
- Claap - Over-communication can have it's drawbacks as it tends to introduce "meeting-fatigue" and slow down the speed of teams. Claap solves this by being an async video collaboration system that helps you get faster and better context when making decisions
- Free Plan: Limited to 15mins screen recording time and 5gb of storage per user
- Paid Plan: Starting at $10/month you get unlimited access to most features but prices range in terms of size of business. more info here
- Gather - Gather brings the best of in-person collaboration to distributed teams.
- Free Plan: Free plan covers most of the basics you'd need to enjoy this product, unlimited video, audio chat
- Paid Plan: Paid plan covers recorded meetings, plan starts from $7
Phenomenally brilliant!