Remote resources
Remote team tips, remote work tools, and my best remote management advice
👋Hi there! I share a weekly update on ways to be a better marketer, brand-maker, team-builder, and person. If you enjoy this, you can share some love by hitting the Substack heart button above or below.
These past days at Buffer, we have spent a lot of time talking about the best ways to help our customers, help each other, and help our communities. One area that we identified was remote work: With so many people working from home, we are happy to help share the lessons we’ve learned from our own remote work journey. I’ll share several resources below. How is the COVID-19 news affecting you? I’d love to help however I can.
Sending everyone lots of hugs and hope this week.
via
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Everything we’ve learned about how to work remotely
by Hailley Griffis, Buffer
Summary:
We’ve been a remote company since the beginning at Buffer (8+ years now). If there is anything I can help you with — whether you’re figuring out remote life for the first time or looking to optimize your remote setup — please do let me know. I’d be very happy to help. Our blog post covers a bunch of our top learnings at Buffer, including our remote communication standards, our tools, and our productivity routines.
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My go-to remote work tools
1. Video calls: Zoom
2. Screenshares and video walkthroughs: Loom
3. Instant messaging and watercooler: Slack
4. Real-time collaboration: Dropbox Paper
5. Project management: Trello
6. Marketing calendar: Airtable
7. Flowcharts, wireframes, idea-sharing: Whimsical
8. Discussion and decision-making: Threads
9. Planning meetings: Calendly
Here’s a look at the rest of our marketing stack at Buffer.
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The best piece of advice I’ve ever heard about managing a remote team
1:1s are first and foremost about connection.
I forget where I first heard this advice (apologies if you gave it to me and you’re reading this now!), but it has been a foundation of the way I’ve managed remote teams for the past five years. When you work remotely, your regular 1:1 with your manager might be the only dedicated face-to-face time you get with someone all week. It’s important for managers to recognize this and to use the time to connect about life before diving into any agenda topics or bullet points. It’s even okay if the whole 1:1 is about connecting. You can always save the bullet points to work through asynchronously.
Thanks so much for reading. Hope you have a good and healthy week.
— Kevan
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