Technology has transformed every aspect of our lives. From the ability to communicate instantly with anyone in the world to having your groceries delivered to your front door at the push of a button, we enjoy many tools and services that have the power to radically simplify our lives.
But why? What role do these technologies play in our lives other than to simplify them? Because leading a simple life for the sake of being simple is meaningless. The true purpose of utilizing technology to simplify our lives is so that we can take ownership of our time.
Budgeting apps have radically simplified the way people handle their money. By employing technology to connect bank accounts and create detailed budgets at the tap of a button, users can spend less time organizing and tracking their finances and more time on other important areas of their lives.
Food delivery apps help users grab a bite to eat without having to get into their cars or pull out their wallets. Using food delivery apps can free up time for the users so they can focus on hosting their guests or sending food to a loved one without the hassle.
Time is precious. So capitalizing on modern technology to reclaim your time can help lead to a more fulfilling life.
Now, regarding work, technology can play a key role in improving personal and organizational productivity.
At Embark, we use a variety of productivity tools that help our hybrid remote team remain organized, efficient, and productive. Here are our top 5 productivity technologies we use (in no particular order).
Slack
There are many instant communication services out there, but we use Slack as a way to keep our team in quick communication with one another. Slack is a great tool to use if you need to share something quickly with your team when email just doesn’t cut it. There are also many useful integrations that pair well with the suite of other productivity tools we use that allow us to custom-tailor the platform for our needs.
Zoom
Zoom has become synonymous with the COVID-19 pandemic with everyone seeming to use the platform to be face-to-face even while apart. We use Zoom pretty much every day at Embark as a tool that allows our team to meet “in-person” without actually being in the same physical space. There’s simply no replacement for in-person conversations, but Zoom is a welcomed alternative for us.
Asana
Asana is a project management tool that allows users to organize a multitude of projects and people to keep organizational goals on track. Small agencies like ourselves often have to juggle multiple projects at the same time and sometimes it’s easy for small tasks to fall through the cracks.
Asana helps us all hold each other accountable and keeps us on the same page when dealing with complex projects. The main interface is simple to use and the platform has more than enough features to scale with us as our agency grows.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud based file storage service and has been a vital tool for our agency. There are two main reasons we love using Google Drive.
For starters, sharing documents internally and with clients is extremely useful. We can create a document within Google Drive and create a shareable link that will allow anyone to access the document. Anyone with the link can also see real-time updates which eliminates the need to manually send different versions of the same document, which can mitigate confusion and miscommunication.
Second, because Google Drive is a cloud based application, we can access documents from any computer or phone with an internet connection which helps us remain flexible whether we are traveling or at home.
Dashlane
Dashlane is a web-based password management tool that not only keeps our applications secure, but also keeps the guesswork out of keeping track of passwords for our team. We have the ability to create a randomly generated, secure password for an application and share with the team without revealing the actual password. Dashlane also has a feature that will prefill application credentials which eliminates the need to manually type in login details.
Dashlane has shaved off hours from having to remember, type, and reset passwords for our agency and helps keep all of our login credentials safe.
Wrapping Up
At Embark, we value time. The more time we save, the more time we can give – to each other, our families, and our clients.
By utilizing technology to increase our efficiency and productivity, we can dedicate even more energy to providing exceptional service and offering valuable digital solutions for our clients.
