Back in 2018, we used to have a section in the 21st Century Work Life podcast dedicated to our favourite online tools for work and collaboration. This feels like ages ago, but most of them are still around, and are still relevant today.

There are flashier versions of some of them, and most have very strong competitors, but we’re still fond of them. Here’s our original commentary, with some updates, and the accompanying episode timecodes. You can listen to the episodes from this post, or you can look for them in your favourite podcast app.

1. Pocket

A neat little clipping/read later service, which lets you capture anything you want to read, from any device – to read at any time. With offline access and stripping out of ads, it’s a very handy app, especially when you’re traveling and want to catch up on all your interesting reading.

It’s also ideal for flexible freelancers or anyone who works on a range different projects and tends to come across important nuggets of information and learning, when in the middle of working on something else.

You can follow people, tag, categorise, and share with other people – or use it as a very simple bookmarking service. But you do need to make time to read the things you have put in your Pocket!

In episode 172, Maya and I chat about Pocket at minute 29.19. Listen in below:

2. Canva

Ideal for creating fast thank-you cards for your team and collaborators!

Making graphic designers out of all of us – content needs pictures to go with the words, and you can make them simply and easily in a browser app. Web banners, twitter cards, thank you messages - they’re all straightforward to create in Canva.

Be careful, as it’s quite fun and you can get carried away if you like visual things and experimenting! Canva allows you to share designs and collaborate with colleagues too. The paid team version is quite an investment, but you can do a great deal with the free tool.

We talk about Canva right at minute 36.48 of this episode:

3. Retrium

A tool for retrospectives or review sessions, Retrium is also useful for idea generation. We talked to one of the co-founders of Retrium back in episode 129 of the podcast.

I use Retrium in retro-style meetings, as it is purpose-built and designed to take you through the phases – starting with individual idea generation, (with others ideas masked), then a ‘big reveal’, where you see everyone else’s contributions and start to collaborate together.

Check out timestamp 39.25 for my thoughts on it:

4. Lino.it

Yes, in 2021, there are many, many online whiteboards, but few are as simple to use as this one.

Lino.it is one of the simplest online planning tools, completely browser-based and no account necessary (though there is a mobile app). The beauty is in just being able to share a link and have everyone jump in and start collaborating. It’s very simple and frictionless to use.

It’s great for brainstorming, thought-dumping, idea capture – using virtual post-it notes, which you can move and pin and cluster at will, with intuitive drag-and-drop ease.

And it’s free – what’s not to like? You can tune in and hear me talk about it right at minute 33.19 below:

5. Voicedream

Back in episode 173 we discussed the medical affliction we affectionately described as ‘homeworkers bum’, a syndrome exacerbated by work which involves lots of reading and research.

It’s not easy to read whilst doing anything but sitting down, but Voicedream is an app which reads written text aloud. It’s not perfectly ‘human’ of course, but this is a technology which is rapidly evolving and will surely improve. This is a nice app that can sync with Pocket (mentioned above), so it helps you get through your reading queue more quickly, even when you’re out for a walk.

Listen to Maya talk about why she likes Voicedream at timestamp 39.05:

6. Zoom

We were using Zoom before it became a verb, and it’s still up there as the best online meeting tool and best space for workshops. I still remember participating in a hybrid event back in, erm, 2016?, and one of the organisers saying, “Oh look, here’s Eric, you know he founded this meeting tool we’re using, Eric, man, we love your app!” .

How would we manage at Virtual Not Distant, without Zoom? Well, we’d use another video meeting tool, there are many out there, but we love Zoom for some of its useful features:

Firstly, breakout rooms really help mirror the face-to-face experience when delivering workshops – it’s great to be able to put people together in groups and switch up the energy.

The ‘hide yourself’ feature is also cool – we don’t usually sit in meetings with colleagues in front of a large mirror! So the ability to hide your own camera feed whilst talking to others, is a nice touch.

Overall, it’s just a nice easy user experience, with great camera work. Zoom also offers the sharpest image, an interface that’s pleasing to the eye where everything simply works, smoothly and intuitively. A typical freemium model, but, you get all the features right out of the box for shorter meetings – and you only pay when you want to use it for longer.

No, we aren’t sponsored by Zoom either! We just know what we like.

Check out timestamp 38.44 where Maya and I sing the praises of Zoom (little did we know just two years later how popular it would become!):

7. Mindmeister

There are many mindmapping tools out there just now, and Maya has experimented with a lot of them – presently she is spending a lot of time in Mindmeister, a browser-based tool, that is good for collaboration.

Mindmeister has simple intuitive controls. A mindmapping tool shouldn’t create any friction — it should just let you think out loud and get down thoughts as they flow, so it’s important that the tool itself doesn’t get in the way. You can get more fancy with adding links and notes, but for quick brainstorming, it’s easy to get started. And there are nice mobile apps too – it’s great on the iPad.

Mindmeister also integrates with Meistertask, if you want to use it to assign to-dos and get creative beyond ‘the list’ to generate your ideas. (This can be liberating for writing types especially!) Those integrations are paid options, but the free version lets you do quite a lot, and get a feel for whether it supports your own work.

Listen to Maya explain what she likes about it below at minute 33.57 below:

8. Proposify

Maya’s latest shiny thing is a tool for creating proposals.

Proposify is a bespoke app for compiling costs and deliverables quickly and effectively and making them look nice. The app has lots of great templates, but they’re fully customisable, so you can create a completely unique proposal template and documents for your business or team.

It’s a premium browser-based application with user access control and it also offers tracking and analytics – so you can see if your client has opened the document, and even how long they spent on each section.

And it has signature boxes, so you can use it for contracts and agreements – which would work well for internal use too.

A final bonus is really excellent and high-quality customer support. This tool does have a learning curve, but they do help you to get the most out of it.

Learn more at timestamp 29.01 below:

9. Loom

A powerful way to share little videos and recording your screen in real time along with narration – Loom is a great way to share learning and ideas in remote teams. This tool is all about how it’s sometimes better to show rather than to tell.

It’s available as a chrome plugin, free, and super-easy to share and distribute. There’s no need for an account to view the videos. In fact, you can see an example of a Loom video right here (Scroll down to the Loom section about mid-page.)

Loom offers a desktop app too, and you can upgrade for even more editing and annotation features.

Maya talks about Loom in the episode below at timestamp 46.38:

10. reMarkable

I am in love with my reMarkable tablet, which combines the free-flow creativity of hand writing with being able to store and search what I create digitally afterwards.

It has an e-Ink screen (like the kindle), making a change from looking at backlit screens. I use it for reviewing, editing and note-taking, as well as brainstorming. It also lets me draw beautifully.

Recent software updates include optical character recognition, which has provided the only ‘missing link’ in the creative workflow, and made me fall even more deeply in love with it.

Listen to Maya and I discuss it at 50.29:

Have a tool that makes your remote work life easier that you would like to recommended? Leave us a comment below and tell us about it. We’d love to hear!

10 of Our Favourite Tools for Productive and Connected Remote Work