By Kelli Hulea

We’ve all seen the memes and videos of distractions one may face while working from home. It can be challenging if you don’t have the right resources.

Fortunately, some readily available digital tools can help you become much more productive – possibly even more so than when you’re in the office.

While these four Google Suite features won’t stop your children from running in on your video conference call, they can help you stay organized, manage your time and work more effectively with others remotely.

1. Google Sheets

Similar to Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets can be an effective tool for reporting, planning, tracking and other data-related activities.

Whether you keep track of your timesheet, to-do list, social media content calendar or other documents, Google Sheets provides an easy-to-use solution for you and your team to view, update and add data in real-time.

We rely on it for managing social media content calendars and project lists for our clients, which we can easily share and update with them, keeping everyone on the same page.

Google Sheets are stored in the Google Drive, making it easy to stay organized with the option to add and share folders.

2. Google Docs

Google Docs, similar to Microsoft Word, is like Google Sheets in the way that you can share, view and edit documents easily with others.

Like Word, there are many template options available, including those suitable for meeting notes, proposals, brochures, newsletters and more.

We use Google Docs every day for just about everything — from blog articles to newsletter stories, presentations and corporate communications.

Docs makes it easy to track edits and make suggestions for your team members or customers to view, making it a great tool for working together while being remote. 

Like Sheets, Docs are stored in the Google Drive.

3. Google Calendar

This is such a simple, yet powerful tool. The benefits of Google Calendar may seem obvious, but they’re often underestimated.

Remote professionals who use Google Suite rely on the calendar daily to set up meetings, set deadline reminders, block off time for different tasks and more. It’s much like the ubiquitous Outlook calendar, and just as powerful.

If you know you’ll be distracted by incoming emails when you’re trying to work on a proposal or you’re afraid you might catch yourself in a rabbit hole while researching or looking for curated content on social media, you can establish definitive time blocks to help keep you on track.

When sending meeting invites, you can add notes or questions to the description text box so everyone is on the same page and can have a productive conference call. You can add files as attachments if you plan to present something or would like participants to follow along.

Working remotely requires strong time-management skills. If that’s not you, then Google Calendar might be your best friend.

4. Google Meet

If you’re accustomed to face-to-face meetings, Google Meet (formerly Google Hangouts Meet) is a virtual alternative you might find helpful.

Google Meet is Google’s software for audio and video conference calls. You can “add conferencing” directly to your Google Calendar meeting invite and when it’s time for the call, your invitees can join the video meeting by clicking on the Google Meet link in the invite.

These meetings make it easy for participants to present and share screens with others. Meetings can also be easily recorded for playback later or to upload to YouTube.

Google Meet is designed to work within the Google Suite, but administrators for G-Suite Business accounts can grant access to non-Google users. 

Thinking Differently in Different Times

Almost everyone in business is facing new challenges as a result of the measures imposed to combat COVID-19. One way to bust through these new obstacles is to learn new tools and new ways of working.

If you’re working from home for the first time, these user-friendly features might offer solutions for you to be more productive and transparent as you work virtually alongside your team and customers or clients.

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Kelli Hulea, project manager at Pecchia Communications, relies on Google Suite features on a daily basis to communicate and work with her team and clients. She can be reached at kelli@pecchiacomm.com.