Nonessential offices in San Francisco closed 22 weeks ago, and my husband, Will, and I have been co-working from home ever since. Early on, sharing our 400-square-foot apartment was a delicate dance. Wearing noise-canceling headphones for calls made our voices too loud. Two simultaneous Zoom meetings? “Ha!” our feeble home internet cackled, as we watched our video feeds become pixel art.
The at-home situation is continuing on much longer than most originally thought. Google is keeping employees home until at least July 2021, and so is Facebook. This fall, more students will be distance learning and parents will be charged with supervising—and sometimes even teaching—their kids in lieu of in-person instruction.
As the pandemic was ramping up, we talked a lot about productivity (and my colleague Joanna Stern compiled essential remote-work tips). But now that we’ve been here a while, focusing on our own productivity isn’t enough.
Balancing work and life is difficult when home, office and school occupy the same space, and long-term remote work isn’t working out like we thought it would. Every day can seem like a marathon: nonstop video calls, internet issues, juggling professional responsibilities with house chores and kids’ schedules—all without forgetting to feed your family or yourself.
Tech isn’t a panacea, but cleverly designed calendar, reminder and organization apps can help you stay on top of things. Here are some that are making lives a little easier in these weird times.
Share your calendar with your partner. For Google Calendar, open the website (not the app) and, under My Calendar on the left, hover over the calendar you’d like to share. Click the three dots and select “Settings and sharing.” Scroll down to “Share with specific people” and add your partner’s email address. And yep, it also works with corporate G Suite accounts, as long as your admin allows it. You can also grant permission to only show free or busy times, not specific calendar details.
On Outlook.com, click the calendar icon at the bottom of the page and select “Share.”
Make video meeting links easier to find. Add the Google Calendar or Outlook integrations to Slack. One minute before an event, the app will direct-message a reminder and a link to the meeting, provided you set it as the “location” of the event.
Another solution is Meeter, a free Mac and Windows app that sits in your menu bar and pulls all of your upcoming calls, as well as the corresponding Join links from Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet and others, in one place. It’s great for people who frequently join meetings on multiple apps.
Work from home = nonstop video calls. Meeter is a Mac and Windows app that puts all of your meeting links in one place, whether they're from Zoom, Cisco Webex, Google Meet or some other service.
Photo: MeeterReview your daily agenda on your smart speaker. Add your Google, Microsoft or iCloud calendars to Alexa in the Alexa App > Settings > Calendar & Email. I have an Echo Dot in my bathroom that I ask, “What’s on my calendar?” while I’m brushing my teeth every morning.
Google Home devices can also read you your schedule, but only if it’s on the Google Calendar associated with their linked account. Frustratingly, you can’t add company-managed G Suite or other imported calendars.
Improve your smart-speaker reminders. Reminders are great—except when they’re constantly making every speaker in your house ring. In Alexa, enable “Link your reminders to your voice,” which will send your personal reminders to your phone only.
Google Home will only ping your phone if you’ve created a location-based reminder, like “Remind me to get a scone when I’m at Starbucks.”
Minimize scheduling back-and-forth. Boomerang is a Gmail app typically used to send emails at a later time. A new feature drops suggested meet times—or a live, updating view of your calendar, showing when you’re free or busy—into an email.
Just note, Boomerang needs access to your email. While it’s generally a good idea to limit third-party access to such sensitive data, Google began requiring policy and security reviews of apps that access email data in 2018, making the email app ecosystem safer.
Boomerang, an app for Gmail, can drop suggested meeting times—and even a live view of your calendar showing when you're free and busy—directly into emails.
Photo: BoomerangAn alternative that doesn’t require email access is Calendly. A special Calendly link, which you can easily add to your email, allows people to schedule time on your calendar like an appointment. Because the calendar is connected to your Google, Outlook or iCloud account, you don’t have to worry about double bookings.
Solve for different time zones. If you’re taking the opportunity to work from anywhere in a location far away from company HQ, try the Chrome extension FIO, or Figure it Out, which replaces your default tab with a colorful display of multiple time zones. The darker the color, the later in the day it is in that time zone. The event creation tool is my favorite—when you set a time for the meeting, the extension will show you the corresponding time in each time zone.
If your work-from-anywhere wandering has carried you hundreds or thousands of miles from your old office, the Chrome extension Figure It Out can help resolve time-zone issues.
Photo: Nicole Nguyen/The Wall Street JournalAnother helpful tool, especially if you’re scheduling an international meeting, is Timeanddate.com, a website that can help you find when working hours overlap.
Stay on top of your kids’ schedules. Cozi, a popular family organization app for iOS and Android, combines a shared calendar, shopping list, to-do list and meal planner. Up to 12 people can share one account. (My colleague Julie Jargon wrote about how the app helped a divorced couple manage their family.)
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
What tools do you use to streamline your home, work and family life? Join the conversation below.
Don't let workouts escape you. DownDog, an Android and iOS app, helps you squeeze in yoga whenever you can. Input your preferences for length of the practice and area of focus, and the app will generate sessions for you based on those selections.
Photo: Nicole Nguyen/The Wall Street JournalIf that app seems too complicated, try color-coding your online calendar instead. “I have personally never found anything that worked as well as Google Calendar,” said Jamie Heston, a home-schooling consultant based in California. “Each child has their own color, as do my husband and me. We have a fifth color for things we do as a family.” In Google Calendar, change the color of an event by right-clicking (Control-click on a Mac) and selecting a new hue.
Auto-sort your shopping list. There are a lot of task apps out there, but my pick is Any.Do for this one reason: It automatically organizes groceries by category (“Baked goods,” “Dairy & cheese,” etc.), which makes grocery-store runs more efficient and therefore less risky.
And when the day is done: Chill out, no matter how little time you have. DownDog is an Android and iOS app that has helped me squeeze in yoga whenever I can. You can input your preferences for length—as little as four minutes, or as long as 90 minutes—your skill level, and area of focus. Then the app will generate a practice for you, based on those selections. You can save money (up to 30%, due to App Store commission fees) by subscribing on the website, where it costs $40 a year or $8 a month.
Send your work-life balance questions to nicole.nguyen@wsj.com. For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Write to Nicole Nguyen at nicole.nguyen@wsj.com
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