The crisis had caught us by surprise and now many of us (including me) are working from home. In this compilation I will showcase some of the tools that helped me keep my productivity on track while working from home.

Microsoft Todo

While you are staying at home, everything becomes messed up. Work clashes into your personal life and home chores, and it is impossible to keep track of everything. This is what a good Todo app can help. Microsoft Todo is robust and is loaded with features that can help you navigate these tough times. It lets you label your tasks, create custom notifications, schedule recurring notifications, like a weekly laundry reminder or a weekday meeting reminder.

This app was know as Wunderlist, before Microsoft acquired it in 2017. It was an awesome app from the start, and Microsoft integrated it into its ecosystem. It runs on all major platforms (including mobile) and web.

WakaTime

While you are working from home, it is hard to keep track of how much work you are actually doing. This is where WakaTime comes into play. This service integrates into all major IDEs and text editors and keeps track of your time.

WakaTime will give you a nice-looking dashboard that will terr you how much time do you spend writing code. It also breaks it down by project and language.

This may be helpful for team leads and managers as well. You can require your employees to use it and (1) keep track of your employees’ productivity and (2) bill your clients hourly.

Boosted

While WakaTime will track your time spent coding, Boosted will keep track of everything else. This app will put you in control of your time 24/7.

With Boosted, you can divide your time into projects and track them separately. You will know exactly how much time do you spend working, studying, doing chores and watching Netflix. I cannot stress enough just how important this is. You may not realize now, but even though you feel busy, you might actually spend most of your time not working.

Trello

Trello is most often used for project management. Well, if you view your life as a project, Trello can be of great help. While Microsoft Todo can help you plan on a micro level, Trello can be used for macro management.

You can create boards for tasks that will take weeks and months and track your progress on them. Additionally, you can invite whoever else is living/working with you to your board and collaborate together.

Pen & Paper

Apps are good, but some things never change. A pen and a notebook will never crash, run out of battery, or be hacked.

A good technique you could try out is every day, before going to bed, write down everything you have planned for tomorrow. While you are sleeping, your brain will process the information you received during the day, your Todo list being the most recent. By the time you wake up, you will have a clear image of your day and how to make time for everything.

Closing Notes

Staying at home can be devastating, but that is something that we have to do right now. I hope this list will help you stay productive at home and make sense of the mess that is happening right now. Let me know in the comments how you cope with the crisis!