Remote work isn’t going anywhere—and neither is the need to stay productive while physically apart. Whether you’re collaborating across time zones or juggling Slack messages between Zoom calls, the right tools can make a massive difference. In this post, we’ll highlight five powerful productivity tools that help remote teams get more done, communicate better, and foster a culture of inclusivity and efficiency.
1. Text Blaze – Automate Repetitive Work and Save Hours
Text Blaze is a must-have for any remote worker bogged down by repetitive typing. It lets you create keyboard shortcuts for text snippets, templates, canned responses, and even dynamic forms. Need to send a follow-up email? Fill out the same status update? Just hit a few keystrokes, and boom—done. For remote teams, this reduces errors and increases consistency across internal and external communication.
Pro tip: Create a shared folder of team-wide snippets for customer support, internal documentation, or onboarding emails.
2. Equal Time – Run Inclusive, Data-Driven Meetings
Equal Time brings fairness and structure to your remote meetings. It tracks participation in real-time—who’s speaking, for how long, and even the gender balance of contributors. This insight helps teams create space for quieter voices and measure the impact of DEI initiatives over time. If you’re aiming to make your hybrid or remote meetings more inclusive and intentional, Equal Time is your secret weapon.
Bonus: The dashboard works seamlessly with major meeting platforms and gives you shareable reports post-call.
3. Notion – Centralize Docs, Projects, and Knowledge
Remote teams often suffer from information scatter. Notion solves that by combining notes, wikis, tasks, and databases in one place. Whether you’re running sprint planning, documenting SOPs, or collaborating on a project, Notion provides a flexible, all-in-one workspace. It’s especially great for async teams who want to cut down on meetings and rely more on shared documentation.
Tip: Use Notion’s templates to kickstart a team knowledge base or roadmap.
4. Loom – Replace Long Meetings with Quick Video Updates
Loom is a video messaging tool that lets you record your screen and camera at the same time. Perfect for walkthroughs, status updates, or project feedback. Instead of scheduling yet another call, record a 2-minute Loom and send it to your team. They can watch when it works for them—great for async-first cultures.
Use Loom to onboard new team members or explain complex changes without needing live time on the calendar.
5. Clockwise – Protect Deep Work Time Automatically
Too many meetings can wreck a remote team’s flow. Clockwise syncs with your calendar to automatically optimize meeting times, block out focus time, and prevent scheduling conflicts. It’s like having a personal assistant whose only job is to protect your productivity.
Use it to align your team’s calendars, especially across time zones, so deep work gets the respect it deserves.
Bringing It All Together
Remote work doesn’t have to mean fragmented communication or lost productivity. By combining tools like Text Blaze, Equal Time, Notion, Loom, and Clockwise, you can build a high-performing, inclusive, and efficient distributed team.
At Equal Time, we believe the future of work is both flexible and fair. These tools can help you get there.