Current tools and five new tool suggestions for my everyday working
I work as a project manager in housing management company. In my work I use many different tools, for example Premis (database for housing companies), KOHO (billing) and Infomaatti (report templates). Inside our office we use Microsoft Outlook and Teams for communication and I personally use Microsoft Onedrive for saving all my files in cloud service. It also saves all photos taken with my phone which is very useful feature in my everyday working.
From the list of services suggested I use mostly Whatsapp and Youtube. I use Whatsapp for communication in my work too but mostly personal use. Youtube I use for finding new information for my work and for personal leisure use too.
In my work, I need to schedule my tasks every day. I personally like to use the Google Keep app and my phone’s own calendar for this. I write down very briefly in Google Keep things that come up in meetings or work tasks. I write down all appointments and departures in my phone’s calendar. From list of suggested services I noticed Todoist service. That service would at least integrate my calendar and Google Keep so I wouldn’t have to jump between the two apps. This could increase my efficiency and reduce the risk of forgetting to mark something important on my calendar when I just focus on adding things in one place.
I also write a lot of reports with the Infomaatti tool. I do a lot of similar tasks often that could be made more efficient with artificial intelligence. There is an artificial intelligence tool inside Infomaatti, but after trying it out, it’s not very useful yet.
I also noticed the iAuditor service on the list, which could be useful for me to create reports, but I can’t say for sure without getting to know it better.
New services that I could try for scheduling would be Calendly. I noticed on their website that this service could be very handy for me for scheduling my daily work. Calendly can integrate data from many different applications which would be very useful for me. Calendly also advertised intelligent automation for creating schedules which I would be interested in trying.
I don’t use much AI in my work yet, but I think it could also help me with the reports I do a lot. One option is Google’s Gemini. I’ve gotten to know Gemini a bit and I think it’s a useful tool at times, but I don’t see it as advanced enough to help me in my work yet. Google’s Gemini is a completely free service, but they also offer a paid option.
I have mainly used YouTube to search for videos, but I found the Odysee service, where I also found a lot of interesting and useful videos for my work. The services are quite similar, but it is good that there are alternative solutions to YouTube, so Odysee could be one of them.
We use Microsoft Teams for internal company communication and file sharing. I think this application works well and has almost completely replaced our company’s network drives. Everyone can access the files and the application works much faster than network drives.
One very useful tool for me would be the paid version of Adobe PDF editor. I work with a lot of PDF files and I often come across a situation where it would be most convenient to just edit an existing report template with it. I have used it a lot in the past and I like its features very much, but in my current company I don’t have access to it.
Conclusion and self-evalution
My work is mainly office work, so the services and applications I use on my computer have a big impact on my work efficiency and also my motivation. In my current job, I need a lot of different tools, but I can’t influence them in any way because I’m not in a decision-making position in the company. I’ve also tried to ask for different applications to be installed, but to no avail. I’m doing well with the current tools, but there are always better alternatives. I do understand that from a company’s perspective, it’s also about costs and information security. A good application is made by ease of use and its smooth functionality. For example, Adobe’s PDF editor is one of those. Anyone can use it and it’s very smooth in its operation. Microsoft’s Onedrive is also very easy to use and very functional. I wouldn’t give up these tools in my work. Companies that don’t have a lot of IT expertise, like mine, should consult employees more about this and not just decide on certain tools for employees to use.
I personally learned from this whole thing that I could be more active in the company’s direction regarding the selection and acquisition of these digital tools. Even though it is not my job, only through my own activity can I somehow influence the matter. I have already planned to raise this issue in my company, so I believe that I can still make some change. I also learned from this whole thing that it is important to make do with what is available. Companies always have their own view on the matter and you have to live with that.
I also plan to start my own company in the same field in the future when I have gained enough work experience for it. Therefore, I consider this matter a priority. I choose the best and most effective tools from my own experience for my use so that my company is as efficient as possible but also productive. I have seen and tried a lot of different tools so far so I am already quite sure about the choices of services for my future company, but there will certainly be changes before the company is actually in operation. This was really useful and opening experience to write up.
-Thi Diem Huong Nguyen