I’ve compiled a list of over 40 websites and apps that I consider productivity virtual assistant tools. Of course, you don’t need to know all of them when starting your remote assistance career. However, there’s a good chance that sooner or later you’ll encounter them while working with clients or searching for optimal solutions for them. And if these productivity tools for VAs are usually free and useful from communication to time and project management.
Communication
1. Slack
Slack has become a well-known and essential tool for team communication, via group channels or private messages. It’s one of the most commonly used messaging apps for remote teams. As an assistant, you can connect to the workspaces of multiple clients and seamlessly switch between them. Thanks to integrations and plugins, Slack can offer a range of additional features that simplify workflow, such as scheduling meetings directly from the app or convenient file sharing on Google Drive.
2. Pumble
The instant messenger we use at our agency, VAssistance . It’s created by the same team that created Clockify, a great time tracker, which I’ll discuss below. Pumble is completely free and a great replacement for the aforementioned Slack, which has had some limitations introduced in its free version for some time now. Pumble also lets you create chat channels, conduct threaded conversations, and easily share files with team members. If you’re looking for a Slack alternative for your client, feel free to suggest this solution.
Time tracking
Time trackers are a great option for increasing productivity and, from a client’s perspective, transparency in your work. At VAStaff, we make sure time should be use effectively. You can use them both online and offline, generate reports on your work, monitor activity, and much more.
3. Toggl
One of the most popular time-tracking apps, also frequently used by virtual assistants. The free version is perfectly adequate for collaborating with clients, and you can also generate reports and track your work on both your computer and the app on your phone.
4. Hubstaff
A highly advanced tracker with a range of report generation and additional features, available in a paid version. It’s often used by larger teams. Currently, there’s no free version, only a 14-day trial. However, if your client is looking for a comprehensive tool to track their team’s work time, you can confidently recommend this tool.
5. Clockify
This is another tool we use at VAssistance. The application itself is quite easy to use, yet it allows clients to create highly detailed and visually appealing reports, which can be shared via a generated link. The free version of the tool is sufficient, even for a larger team, so it can be a good alternative to the paid Hubstaff mentioned above.
Creating content for social media and blogs
6. ChatGPT
Everyone’s probably familiar with this tool, or at least heard of it. By including it in the “Content Creation…” section, I’m definitely not referring to generating “how’s it going” content. However, if you’re feeling a bit out of inspiration, it’s worth discussing ideas for future posts with ChatGPT. So, let’s use a prompt to identify the problems of the people we’re targeting. What challenges do they face? We can also ask about topics for future blog posts, and even suggest outlines for them. But be careful about generating entire articles and pasting them onto your blog without even reading them.
Project management
7. Trello
It’s a simple tool that lets you organize all your to-do tasks in one place and manage them efficiently. You can use the kanban technique to organize tasks on Trello cards or create your own system. Thanks to available integrations, you can connect it with other tools you use and use Trello as a foundation.
8. Asana
Asana is a slightly more complex tool than Trello, but it has a great repeatable task feature – this means that once you’ve set a task correctly, after marking it as completed, it will automatically refresh for the next scheduled date. The tool is great for collaborating with clients, as it simplifies task management by adding due dates, categories, and priorities, and allows for ongoing progress discussions. Furthermore, it’s been available in Polish for a long time and is completely free to use. If a new client mentions they use a project management tool, it’s likely Asana.
9. Notion
It’s a powerful tool for storing and organizing information, planning work, and managing projects in one place. It has extensive features that let you create and organize tasks, notes, and documents, combine them into databases, and fully customize them to your needs. It’s one of my favorite tools, and I can’t imagine my daily work without it. You can read more about Notion in this post: Notion Basics – What You Need to Know to Get Started .
Creating and editing graphics
10. Canva
I think everyone’s already familiar with this tool. Canva is an intuitive app for creating beautiful graphics, even for those with no graphic design skills. It has a large library of free photos and designs, as well as templates, so you can create graphics for any social media, logo, presentation, or whatever you can imagine.
11. Pixlr
A cloud-based, free toolkit for creating, editing, and sharing photos. The app runs directly in your browser and is suitable for both simple and more advanced editing.
12. Kling AI
A website for generating beautiful graphics using AI. You can generate graphics based on your own ideas by entering the text of a prompt, or you can use ready-made works by other authors.
13. Smart mockups
Sometimes, when creating graphics for our own electronics products or those of our clients, we look for free mockup options. On this website, in addition to paid images, you’ll also find a large database of free mockups, with the option of automatically uploading your chosen image.
14. Snapedit Background Remover
I recently replaced the popular Remove.bg app for quickly removing backgrounds from photos with Snapedit, which also has other interesting features, such as removing objects from photos, removing text, and blurring backgrounds. And most importantly, you can download the finished photos in higher resolution than Remove.bg.
15. TinyPNG
A simple website for compressing png and jpg image files to minimize their size when uploaded to the web. Alternatively, you can use EasyResize and ImageCompressor on WebsitePlanet .
Video editing
16. CapCut
If you’re a virtual assistant and want to create and edit videos, CapCut is a must-have. It’s free and easy to use, and it’s a truly excellent video editing tool. You can use it both as a mobile app and on your computer.
Video Conferencing
17. Google Meet
Meet is a great online chat tool if you don’t need a lot of features. You can easily create a meeting from your Gmail or Calendar inbox.
18. Zoom
Zoom is a meeting platform you can use in your browser or by downloading the app. It facilitates group meetings and offers a range of options, such as meeting recording, screen sharing, and whiteboarding.
Stock photos
Pixabay, Unsplash, and Freepik are a treasure trove of both free and paid photos and graphics, which you can search for using tags in over a dozen languages. The good news is that these libraries don’t overlap, so you can browse endlessly until you find the perfect image. Most of these resources are available under a free license.
Screen Recording
19. Loom
A simple yet very useful program for recording what’s happening on your computer screen. Additionally, if you have a webcam with a microphone connected, you can comment on what you’re doing. It’s useful for recording instructional videos.
20. Google Calendar
My favorite scheduling tool. It has everything I need. You can invite people to the meeting, set custom notifications for upcoming events, and create a video conference link directly from the scheduled meeting, all accessible from any device.
21. Calendarly
If you’re recruiting or simply have a meeting overload, Calendly is a great tool. You enter your availability in your calendar, and the people you’re meeting with choose a time that works for them and book the date using the link provided.
22. Doodle
A simple yet incredibly useful app for scheduling meetings when multiple people are expected to attend. You create an event and specify a few time slots, then other people select the times that suit them. This way, instead of exchanging dozens of emails to schedule a shared time for everyone, everything can be streamlined using this tool.
Notes
23. Evernote
While at first glance it may seem like a standard notebook that could be replaced with any other, you’ll quickly discover that Evernote has much more to offer. What’s that? You can save useful links and articles on the fly, catalog and quickly find the documents you need, or take advantage of integration with other programs like Slack or Trello, which let you pin and send important messages directly to your Evernote database.
24. Google Keep
A much simpler tool than Evernote, but still very useful. Plus, you can access your notes from Gmail or other Google tools.
Creating surveys and forms
If you need to gather information from a large number of people, both Google Forms and Tally are useful tools. You can freely create closed- and open-ended questions with multiple answer options, then export the collected information to a spreadsheet for efficient processing.
WordPress plugins
25. Yoa st SEO
Virtual assistant tools can also include WordPress plugins. This is one of the most popular and will certainly be useful if you run a blog (your own or on behalf of a client). It helps optimize your website content for SEO.
26. Head & Footer Code
It’s used to add custom code snippets to your website, even if you’re not a developer. This could be verification code for various services, custom text styling, or converting Google Analytics tracking code. It’s a reliable, lightweight, and easy-to-use plugin.
27. Contact Form 7
Contact Form is a plugin that allows you to create forms for your website. You can use it to create, for example, a contact form that forwards messages directly to your email inbox.
Fast transfer of sensitive data
28. Privnote
Virtual assistant tools also include sites for sending sensitive data. One such site is Privnote, a free site that allows users to easily exchange encrypted notes online. Messages are stored on a certified server and can only be accessed via a specific URL.
29. Quickforget
This is another simple website that allows you to share confidential text information, such as passwords. It allows you to set an expiration date for your shared “secret” and then generate a URL for sharing the message securely.
Other useful
30. Sejda
Sejda is a PDF editor that lets you convert, edit, sign, extract or delete pages, resize files, and more. The program is available as a download, but files are also stored in the cloud and can be accessed from a browser.
31. Feedly
A great tool for aggregating all the articles we’re interested in in one place. If you want to stay up-to-date with blogs or news portals, highlighting the topics that interest you most, Feedly is, in my opinion, indispensable.
32. Spotify
This is a somewhat subjective choice, as I often listen to music while working. If you’re also a fan of musical rhythms while completing tasks, it’s worth investing in the paid version.
33. Convertio
A website where you can convert virtually any audio, video, or image file. This is useful if you need to convert, for example, a JPG file to PNG, a NUMBERS file to XLSX, or anything else. The website supports over 300 formats. It also has a Chrome plugin.
34. ColorZilla
ColorZilla is a browser plugin that allows you to grab a color from any page open in your browser and use it in another program. The tool allows you to grab a color in RGB, HSV, and HTML formats.