Shuffling papers, peeking into folders, digging through inboxes… Sounds familiar? If your remote team has a knack for disorganization, we have a solution. With a collaborative, single source of truth (SSOT) they won’t miss a thing, ever again. In 2019, Citrix and The Economist ran a collaborative survey “The Experience of Work.” Among the 1,145 business executives, 47% said that ease of access to business information is the key driver…
Continue ReadingWho would’ve thought the transition to remote work would carry over the nuisance of daily meetings? Well, thanks to VoIP and video conferencing tools, our love-hate relationship with daily (weekly, monthly…) scrums continue. Luckily, quick sync-up meetings are here to save the day. In a now-famous email to Tesla employees, Elon Musk shared his formula for effective meetings. According to Musk, they should be small, short, and scarce. Teams should…
Continue ReadingLast year at our Y Combinator demo day presentation, we set out on a journey to make Taskade a breath of fresh air in the team collaboration space. We created a remote-first productivity tool that would enable teams to collaborate in real-time without friction. We wanted to build a remote-first productivity tool, for ourselves and other distributed teams like us, in one unified workspace. Fast-forward to today, our priorities haven’t…
Continue ReadingTerry Crews doesn’t check his email before hitting the gym, but it’s a safe bet that everyone else does. Over the course of almost 50 years (!), email has become a staple in our professional lives. Now that the modern workplace pivots to remote, it’s about time we challenged the status quo: Does @mailto belong in remote workflows? 🤔 If you’re like most knowledge workers, chances are you have a…
Continue ReadingDo you think you can juggle multiple tasks and not flop any of them? Well, let’s just say that the myth of multitasking was busted a long time ago. But don’t worry, you can still bet on *remote* cross-functional teams that are up for the task (or two). 🏋️ Regardless if you are a freelancer or work as part of a remote team, some tasks and projects are just too…
Continue ReadingWritten communication is going through a renaissance of sorts. With the rise of remote work, the ability to express thoughts in a clear and organized manner is in high demand. But while asynchronous communication these days is mostly about chat, emails and texts, there’s another writing skill you should master — how to write a memo. Memos (memorandums for short) aren’t only a domain of high-profile CEOs. They’re a great,…
Continue ReadingRemember the 1992 Glengarry Glen Ross scene where Alec Baldwin’s character schools the sales team on the principles of Always Be Closing (ABC)? That’s some A-level mentoring right there. Wouldn’t it be cool if fully distributed teams could get a *similar* learning experience through remote mentoring sessions? 🤝 What’s Remote Mentoring? 📘 Mentoring: employee training system under which a senior or more experienced individual (the mentor) is assigned to act…
Continue ReadingTeam conflicts happen, whether it’s a simple difference of opinion, misalignment, or a squabble over project details, disagreements happen in all types of organizations. But dealing with team conflicts remotely… that’s a whole new type of challenge. 😱 Discord in a remote workplace is tricky to spot, and a heck of a challenge to deescalate, once it goes past a certain point. After all, remote employees (and managers) can’t just…
Continue ReadingThe recent Spotify x Joe Rogan deal made one thing clear: Spotify is going for gold of the podcasting industry. While the company’s chain of acquisitions is part of a well-thought-out business model, the Swedish music streaming service didn’t start as the most orderly bunch. Back in 2012, Spotify sported an experimental and highly volatile organizational approach that came to be known as the “Spotify model.” In today’s article, we’re…
Continue ReadingHave you come here looking for knowledge? 🧠 That’s perfect timing as we’re just about to take a closer look at another interesting system for collecting and organizing information. A brainchild of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, the Zettelkasten method can make you (and your team) smarter, more productive, and effective at work. While the Zettelkasten was originally created to support Luhmann’s scientific research, we decided to look at it from…
Continue ReadingWhen Thoreau moved into his Walden cabin in 1845, he left most of his possessions behind. Had he lived today, he’d have probably dumped his smartphone and smartwatch too and embraced the way of digital minimalism. What’s digital minimalism? Why is it good for you? Let’s find out! 💡 Defining Digital Minimalism Did you know that the average smartphone user—wink wink—checks their phone 58 times a day? According to RescueTime’s study, the…
Continue ReadingWhat’s the difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication? Which is better for your team? There’s no better time to find answers to these questions than during a global work-from-home (WFH) experiment. In this article, we explore the differences between real-time and async comms. Oh, and while we’re at it, we also settle a debate: Which of the two belongs in the workplace of the future? 🤔 Sync vs. Async: What’s…
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A Single Source of Truth: Why Your Remote Team Needs One 
The Art of Quick Sync-Ups for Remote Teams (Updated 2024) 
One App to Rule Them All: How Remote-First Teams Succeed 
Email in Remote Workflows: A Complicated Relationship 
Multitasking for Remote Cross-Functional Teams (Updated for 2024) 
How to Write a Memo: Effective Business Communication 101 
Onboarding and Mentoring Remote Employees 
Diffusing Conflict in Distributed Teams 
The Sound of Remote Collaboration: Autonomous Squads 
The Zettelkasten Method for Distributed Teams 
Minimalism in a Digital Remote World 
Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication for Collaboration, That Is the Question