Few people realize that our daily work related tasks can be described with four simple terms; communication, creation, sharing and organizing. While the nature of these elements hasn’t changed much in recent years, the way we deal with them has transformed completely due to technological advancement.
I’m certain that you need to use one or more software for each of these tasks nowadays. If you want to work effectively you also have to find ways to integrate them. In the following paragraphs, I’m going to describe how technology changed our daily jobs and give you some tips, on how to get the most out of the alteration.
Communication
The most popular form of communication besides personal meetings is still talking on the phones. While mobiles have become our most important gadgets, in most cases there are better alternatives for discussing work related projects, than talking about them on cell phones.
The fact that most people check their mailboxes at least once a day makes email the perfect tool for sending a large amount of information, or official documents. Despite the ongoing efforts of wireless carriers the popularity of the VOIP applications is also growing, and in most cases they can completely replace phone calls, and provide similar, if not better call quality for personal or work related conversations.
Most young people are using messaging apps nowadays, instead of texting. And although these apps have primarily been used for private conversations until now, many companies started to work with Slack and other collaborative tools too.
Instant messaging platforms have many other uses next to simplifying communication for employees or friends. Facebook and other firms are working on artificial intelligence powered chatbots that could help or replace customer services. While I’d take these predictions with a grain of salt it’s not entirely impossible, that these bots could one day replace company websites. If they will work as planned they could provide an easier way to gather information, through an uncomplicated medium, with which the users are already familiar with.
As you could see from the above examples the tools we use for communication are changing rapidly. Emails replaced letters, WhatsApp replaced text messages, and we can use Skype instead of phone calls. With that said the transformation of platforms, didn’t change our need for communication on work related projects, just made things easier.
If you’re considering integrating instant messaging platforms into your workflow, you can find the comparison of their abilities here, and this site informs you about how secure these apps are.
Creating and sharing
The programs we use to create documents, pictures and other types of media haven’t transformed as rapidly as tools we use to communicate. The breakthrough on this field came with the ability to store our files on the net, and share them with our co-workers through cloud-based services. Most of these apps allow users to edit documents collectively and send each other files which are too large for emails. These functions can make teamwork much more productive in most cases.
With one or two exceptions the various services offer free storage space up to 15 GB, which can be expanded with a paid plan. If you haven’t done that already you should try some of these apps. This list could help you pick the ones, which are suitable for you.
Organizing
Using various applications to organize your daily tasks can help you in many ways. I strongly recommend calendar apps, with a reminder function to manage meetings and other events that you have to attend. In Google Calendar, you can create recurring events too, and if you set it up this way, the tasks will automatically turn up in the web application, when needed.
Task manager programs like Wunderlist or Things are also very useful if you would like to collect and prioritize your different works. Asana and other project management applications have similar functions and, in addition to those they are able to make more complex plans transparent.
Of course, the technological solutions I’ve collected for this post won’t always make your life easier. It’s possible, that some of the programs won’t save you as much time as it would take to learn using them properly. Constant reminders and alerts might also distract you from working on important tasks.
There’s no doubt that technology is taking over our lives on many levels. But it’s not something you should fight against. It’s much more beneficial to look for a combination of tools, that can simplify your life and make you more productive.
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