Do you want to be more productive and organised so you can earn more money as a remote worker or digital nomad?
Then this list of remote working tips and tools is for you.
There are so many tools out there for digital nomads and online business owners nowadays, it can get overwhelming. Especially if you are new to the online business world.
After several years as a digital nomad I have tried hundreds of apps, software and websites.
Some I found useless.
Some I liked until I found better alternatives.
In this list you’ll find my absolute favourites.
I am so excited for you to read this, and find your new favourite tools you can’t live without. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
The 99 Best Remote Working Tools
Time management and focus
- Focus@Will
Get into the flow state fast and boost your productivity with this science-based music streaming service. To learn more, check out their website here.
- Rescue time
Rescue Time is a time management software which gives you insights on how you spend your time on your laptop and phone.
- Mindlab Pro
I can highly recommend this brain-boosting nootropic that my boyfriend introduced to me. Stick with it for 30 days and you’ll see crazy improvements in your focus, energy levels, and memory. I like that it’s caffeine-free since I easily get jitters.
Learn more about nootropics and my top tips on how to stay productive in the video below:
- F.lux
- The blue light from your laptop and computer makes it harder to sleep. This free software gives your screen a warm color before bedtime so you can fall asleep more easily.
- Toggl
Productivity tool and time-tracking app that lets you track how much time you spend on activities.
- Focus booster
A clean and easy-to-use pomodoro timer app, that creates time sheets for you automatically, as well as reports.
- Insight Timer
My go-to meditation timer. This app also has hundreds of guided meditations.
- Headspace
This meditation app is very popular amongst digital nomads.
- Workfrom
Find coffee shops and other places in your town with fast wifi you can work from.
- Coworker
Feel productive working from a coworking space? Put in your town in the search bar and see which coworking spaces are near you and their reviews.
Flights and transportation
- Kayak
Kayak is one of the most popular flight comparison engines in the world with over 2 billion searches per year, and for good reason – easy to use and easy to find cheap flights. It searches hundreds of travel websites at once to find you your best flight. For more flight hacks, check out this post. I use it in combination with Kiwi.
- Kiwi
I’m surprised by how few people know about this gem. I have saved A LOT of money with this flight search engine. In contrast to the big search engines, Kiwi will find you the cheapest combination of flights, even if it means you’ll have to check in again in your connection. The downside is that you don’t automatically get put on the next available flight if you miss your connection. However, they include a guarantee that covers cases of flight delays and missed connections.
- Compensair
Get up to €600 in compensation if you’ve had a delayed or canceled flight. An app that predicts flight prices, so you know when to book to get cheap tickets. Get email alerts for flights that are unusually cheap.
- Hopper
Get up to €600 in compensation if you’ve had a delayed or cancelled flight. App that predicts flight prices, so you know when to book to get cheap tickets. Get email alerts for flights that are unusually cheap.
- Jack’s Flight Club
Get email alerts for flights that are unusually cheap.
- Grab
A must-have app on your south-east Asia trip for food delivery and transportation.
- EconomyBookings
Want to rent a car for your next road trip? This is the best search engine I have found for car rentals.
- Uber
Find affordable taxis in this easy-to-use phone app. I love that you can follow the taxi on the map and see approximately how many minutes it will take for it to arrive.
- Priority Pass
Priority Pass is the biggest airport lounge access membership platform.
Travel
- Safety Wing
SafetyWing is affordable travel insurance made specifically for digital nomads. I love how flexible and easy it is to set up. Much cheaper than travel insurance in my home country.
- Tripadvisor
Find out the top things to do in the town you are visiting and read reviews.
- Viator
Viator is my go-to tour company. Easy to book and they have tours pretty much everywhere. Convenient when you’re like me and don’t want to rent cars abroad.
- Omio
Planning a trip to Europe? Omio will significantly help your planning process. Here you can book flights, buses and trains, all in one search.
- Raileurope
Europe’s official train ticket booking platform. Find and book train tickets for your Europe trip here.
- GoCity
With GoCity you can save money on sightseeing by buying a city pass, which let’s you access tons of sightseeing attractions.
- Tourradar
Tourradar is one of the biggest tour companies in the world. Trustworthy, friendly 24/7 customer support and best price guarantee.
- Tripit
Trip planner and flight tracker. Simply forward your travel emails and your itinerary gets created.
- Google Maps
A lifesaver when traveling, that you are probably already using. But did you know that you can download the map of a city so you can use it offline?
- Nomadlist
Find the best towns to visit as a digital nomad, based on cost of living, internet speed etc.
- HappyCow
Are you vegan or vegetarian and want to find places where you can have more than a carrot salad? Then this app is your lifesaver.
- Yelp
Read reviews of restaurants, dentists, hair salons and other service-based businesses near you.
Projects and organizing
- Trello
I can’t live without this project planner. Create a project board to easier visualize the project and which tasks need to be done. Easy-to-use and free.
- Wrike
Is there more than 1-2 people in your company? Then I recommend upgrading to the more powerful project management software Wrike.
- LastPass
Do you keep forgetting your passwords? I keep all my passwords in the powerful, secure app LastPass. All you have to do is remember your master password, and the app will autofill logins for you.
- Todoist
Todoist is a popular to-do list app that let’s you plan, organize and collaborate on projects.
- Dropbox
Store and organize your files in the cloud so you won’t lose them if your laptop gets stolen.
- Earth Class Mail
Affordable mail forwarding service. Earth Class Mail brings your physical mail into the cloud so you can access it from anywhere.
Accommodation
- Booking.com
Booking.com is my hotel/hostel booking platform of choice. It’s usually much cheaper here than to book it on the hotels’ official websites. If you become a member you get even more discounts. You can read reviews and how people rate the hotel’s wifi speed.
- Worldpackers
Worldpackers offers free accommodation (and sometimes also food!) in exchange for volunteering. They offer three types of volunteer opportunities:
- Work exchange – exchange your skills for accommodation
- Social impact – volunteer in NGOs, schools & social projects
- Eco program – learn in eco-villages, farms & permaculture projects
Most opportunities are free, and there are many filters you can apply to find the perfect host for you. Some filters are continent, skills, month, travel length, type (beach, party, contact with nature etc). Most hosts require you to work 5 hours a day Monday to Friday with weekends off. Accommodation is free, and some hosts offer free meals too.
- Hotels.com
Hotels.com is a huge hotel search site with many options and discounts.
- HomeAway
Homeaway is the most popular vacation rental site in the US, with millions of rentals worldwide.
- AirBnb
Rent housing all around the world. Almost all places come with a kitchen, which means you can save money on food!
- Couchsurfing
Crash for free at a generous local’s sofa!
- Trusted Housesitters
Take care of a house owner’s pet(s) and house and stay for free while they are away on vacation.
Writing and notes
- Grammarly
A browser-extension that corrects your spelling mistakes. Another digital nomad must-have tool I can’t live without.
- Journey
Since I can’t read my own writing I prefer digital journals. Journey is my favorite one – free and secure app.
- Pro Writing Aid
An all-in-one grammar checker, style editor, and writing coach.
- Evernote
Evernote let’s you store all your notes in one place, whether handwritten, web pages, photos or audio. And it’s all searchable so you instantly find them when you want.
- Google Docs
Invite team members or clients to your document and you can all edit it in real- time. Access and edit it both on phone and laptop.
Physical tools
- Travel games
Bring mini-sized travel games on your trips, such as mini Monopoly or playing cards.
- Powerbank
Bring a small, powerful powerbank on your trip to ensure your precious electronics are never low on batteries on the road.
- Noise-canceling headphones
Say goodbye airplane noise and babies crying on the plane with noice-canceling headphones.
- Mirrorless DSLR camera
Take high-quality photos on the road, without a heavy camera that takes up half of your backpack.
- Travel adapter
With a worldwide travel adapter, you never have to worry about which socket you will encounter in your new country.
- Sleep mask
Are you a sensitive sleeper like me? Sleep like a baby, no matter what time of day and how much light the curtains let in.
- Earplugs
It always annoys me when people complain about noise in hostels. Just always bring some quality earplugs, and you’ll never be woken up by noise again.
- Digital luggage scale
I will never forget when I had to pay $100 at the airport because my bag was too heavy. Now I always bring a small luggage scale to avoid this.
- Polarized sunglasses
Whether you’re going to a beach in South-east Asia or skiing in the Alps, it’s important to protect your eyes from the UV rays with some quality sunglasses.
- Menstrual cup
Tampons and pads can be tricky to find in some countries, and take up a lot of space. Get a menstrual cup instead, one lasts for up to 10 years!
- Electric Travel shaver
Bring a small electric shaver and you’ll never have to buy disposable razors again.
- Kindle e-reader
Instead of bringing heavy books, why not bring a light e-reader instead? It’s smaller than books and you can download hundreds of books.
Learn skills
- Skillshare
Thousands of online video classes on everything from programming to ink drawing. I love that every class has a project that lets you practice and get feedback. Read more here.
- Creative Live
Creative Live broadcasts free live classes from experts in photography, design, audio and business. I can HIGHLY recommend the courses Build A Standout Business and Master Your People Skills.
- Coursera
Here you’ll find affordable courses from top universities and colleges like Yale and Stanford and companies like Google and IBM.
- Udemy
Online learning platform that often have flash sales where you can find video courses for less than 10 dollars. I have bought so many courses here.
Websites and marketing
- WordPress
WordPress is THE place to get a website or blog, due to being extremely versatile and highly customisable with lots of plug-ins.
- Aweber
Aweber is the email software I use for twinflameguides.com and highly recommend. It’s more value for money than their competitor Mailchimp, easier to use and offers more templates.
- Canva
This document was designed in Canva. Make beautiful designs without needing to hire a web designer.
- Calendly
Meeting scheduling software. I use this so people can book a coaching session with me without having to spend time emailing back and forth deciding on a time.
- Typeform
Create interactive and engaging online forms for free.
- Shopify
Starting a dropshipping or print-on-demand shop? This is hands down the best online store builder.
- Clickbank
Huge affiliate network. Earn money promoting other people’s products or upload your product and have other people promote YOUR product.
- Google Adwords
Boost traffic to your website with Google’s advertising system.
- Squarespace
A drag-and drop website builder. I choose Squarespace for this blog because of it’s beautiful templates and because it’s easy to use. The downside is that it is not as customizable and powerful as WordPress.
Money
- PayPal
A popular online payment system that let’s you send money online, fast and easy. Here is where I send invoices to my clients.
- TransferWise
Do you have clients abroad? Then you can save A LOT using the money transfer service Transferwise. Cheaper than PayPal and around 8 times cheaper than traditional international bank transfer.
- Revolut
A digital, app-only bank. Easy to use and super low fees. I use it as my bank card when I’m traveling.
- Mint
Free money manager app and financial tracker app.
- Invoicely
Free online invoicing for small businesses.
- XE Currency
Popular currency converter app. Available on both Android and Apple.
- Trailwallet
Travel budget app and trip planner.
- Payhip
Sell digital downloads and memberships to your visitors and followers.
Language
- Italki
One-on-one online teaching with a local. I have been teaching Swedish on this language learning platform for years and it’s so rewarding to see my students go from not knowing a word to being fluent in their new language. The lessons are held over Skype or their app, which means you can learn from anywhere.
- FluentU
FluentU is a fun language learning platform. I prefer this over Duolingo since it uses real- world videos like music videos, news, movie trailers etc, rather than translating sentences like “A duck crosses a lake” or “A bird eats an apple”.
- Google Translate
Instantly translates words and phrases, all for free. You can also listen to how it sounds like spoken.
Networking and hire
- Fiverr
Fiverr is THE place to go if you need to hire a logo designers, programmers, translators and other freelancers for a short gig. Read the reviews, see their previous work and their prices to decide on the best freelancer for you. I go here when I need a new logo or e-book cover.
- Upwork
The world’s largest freelancer platform. Why not sign up as a seller too, offering a service?
- LinkedIn
A social networking site specifically for the business community. Great place to network whether you’re a freelancer, employed or business owner.
- Meetup
Find meetups in your town! Most big towns has digital nomad and entrepreneur meetup groups. Great for networking and making friends wherever in the world you are.
- We work remotely
The biggest remote work community in the world. Find a remote job or post a job.
Communication
- Skype
Free online video calls. Popular amongst digital nomads as you can use it to make cheap international calls.
- Whatsapp
Popular and messaging phone app. You can also use it for calls – audio or video.
- Zoom
Like Skype, but with the additional advantage that you can record the calls.
- Slack
A chat room for your whole company.
Social media
- Tailwind
Tailwind is an Instagram and Pinterest scheduler for bloggers and small businesses, considered one of the best in the industry. Recommend by a Pinterest expert I met in Bali.
- Later
Popular and free marketing platform, mainly for Instagram.
- Buffer
Another powerful social media manager software. Plan and publish your social media posts, all from the same dashboard.
- Snapseed
Free photo editor phone app. A lifesaver when you want to get rid of something small in an image before you upload to Instagram, like a pimple or plastic.
- Reddit
A social network of communities based on people’s interests. Follow subreddits in your niche to stay updated about the latest news, and of course the r/digitalnomad subreddit!
- BuzzSumo
Find out which topics are trending on social media and has been shared the most. You can use this information to create viral blog posts.
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I hope you have enjoyed this list and found some new favourite remote working tools and tips you will implement soon. For more remote working tips and hacks, don’t forget to follow my Instagram.
