For many organizations, having a dependable toolbox can make all the difference when it comes to maintaining an efficient workplace, especially when it comes to home office.

Therefore, Activity Stream would like to introduce you to our new series: Tools For The Industry, where we will research the best tools that we have seen, heard, or are currently using to help inspire other organizations to look into updating their toolbox.

To kick off the series, we would like to start with a fun introduction of the tools that we use to help us stay productive…

#1 Calendy

Ever want to schedule a meeting, but there is that awkward ‘when are you available?’ phase? With Calendy it removes that by allowing you to schedule meetings without back-and-forth emails. It is a wonderful tool to use with our clients that not only saves time, but takes the stress out of scheduling…

#2 Whereby

Ah Whereby, our favorite facetime meeting! This tool allows us to communicate with video meetings in a simple and easy way. No download, no unnecessary installations – just the friendly face of a fellow streamer. We host our company meetings, team meetings, updates and even our virtual quiz events together on Whereby…

Oh and extra bonus: For the month of February Whereby plants trees for every meeting made, how cool is that?!

#3 Contractbook

No matter the nature of your company, you’ll be setting up contracts with clients or collaborators – it could be a sponsorship contract, a contract with a co-producing company or someone hiring the venue. We used to use Word templates with yellow markings, turning them into pdfs and signing them in an image editor before sending them to clients and partners. When they were returned, we had to remember to store them in the right folder, which then got crowded and was impossible to navigate.

Phew, glad those days are over. We now use a few templates in Contractbook , and signing, sending, follow up and storing is done automatically.

#4 Grammarly

Sometimes it is hard knowing what is the write….right tool for you. If you tend to sometimes have slip ups like that one, Grammarly might be a good tool to add. Grammarly helps to catch errors, from the smallest and simplest ones to the big and awkward ones… even if you are a native English speaker it can help to have a second pair of eyes…

#5 Slack

Slack has been our primary communication tool for our company, allowing us to update the team on all things Activity Stream. Slack is made for business communication and offers different ‘channels’ to organize topics for more structured communication. This means that you can easily create spaces for different subjects, which can help keep the team stay focused and motivated.

From channels on development, keeping the team updated on the latest news and even our homemade recipes and challenges, Slack has not just given us an efficient way to communicate, but has also kept us close to one another.

Now that you have gotten a look inside our toolbox, let us know if there are any tools that you use that help you stay productive, motivated or inspired…

Bonus tool on handling stress:

When work life gets crazy, Headspace is there to help us unwind. Headspace is a meditation app that helps to relieve stress. They even have an article on How to Create a Mindful Home Office with useful tips to help keep your work performance strong. By keeping the mind clear it enables a more productive streamer!

Some other tools we use to look into: