SSTAC

18 Browser Extensions for Mental Health

Helping you stay ~~productive~~ sane while working from home.

Work From Home, Lock Down, Working, Home, Work, Room

When working from home, there’s no office chit-chat, no mandated lunch break, and often no one else in the house to small talk with throughout the day. In the office, these organic breaks recharge us and can help pull us out of slumps. These web browser extensions help build those breaks back into your day and avoid the feeling of endless grinding that often comes with remote work.

If you’d like to download any of these helpful apps, feel free to click through their hyperlinked icon. All of them are free to use and take no time to setup!

Tabtics

Tabtics gives you a helpful dashboard full of soothing images and health tips whenever you open a new browser tab.

Calm

Calm allows you to put certain websites that you may browse too frequently (see – Facebook) on a blacklist. When you visit these websites, you will be given a prompt to take a pre-sepcified amount of deep breaths to help you be more mindful in your browsing.

Healthy Browsing

Healthy browsing is a do-it-all health browser extension that reminds you to do things like drink water, correct your posture, and stretch.

DeskAthlete

DeskAthlete gives you short exercises that you can do without ever leaving your desk. These quick workouts will help you reset and get a little energy boost on those long days.

NimbusMind

With everything from calming sounds and wallpapers to meditation lessons, NimbusMind will help you keep your mental health in check throughout the day.

Stretch Reminder

Simple and straightforward, Stretch Reminder lets you set the times for frequency and duration of your stretching sessions.

PostureMinder

PostureMinder gives you notifications for resetting your sitting posture and taking walks throughout the day.

30s Neck Stretch

Neck health is often overlooked – until you wake up in pain after a long day at the desk. 30s Neck Stretch gives you a pop-up every 45 minutes that times your neck stretch session.

Water Walk

Water Walk gives you a bit of the office life back, encouraging you to take a water cooler break every 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

Water Reminder

Instead of having a mandated ping or alarm, Water Reminder allows you to customize an audio, visual, or audio-visual reminder to get your daily water intake.

Screen Shader

We’ve all heard about the problems that come with blue light emission from screens. Screen Shader removes that burden by allowing you to set timelines and levels for your blue-light filtering.

Dark Reader

Dark Reader takes a different approach to blue light filtering. Instead of ‘orange-ing’ your screen, it toggles or automatically creates a dark theme for any website you visit.

Noisli

Noisli allows you to create custom ambient noise combinations and set them on a timer for your background noise needs.

Peace

Each time you open a new tab using Peace, you are greeted by peaceful shifting landscapes, inspirational music, and soothing ambient music.

Warn Me

If you keep running into personal triggers while browsing throughout the day, Warn Me may be for you. This extension will warn you whenever it detects one of your custom key words on your web-page.

Soothe

Soothe takes a different route than Warn Me. Whenever it detects one of your key words, it automatically blurs it from your screen.

MoodiModo

Unlike the other extensions here, MoodiModo focuses on helping you improve your mental health through long term review. When the pop-up appears, indicate your mood at the time. Then at the end of the week, look at how your mood may have been affected by different events during the work-week.

Forest

I’ve saved my favorite for last. Forest functions as an active pomodoro timer by allowing you to plant a tree that will grow to fruition in 30 minutes as long as you don’t visit websites on your blacklist. This allows you a sense of accomplishment for staying focused instead of putting all the weight on personal accountability.

It’s not all up to you.

Mental health, even with all the current buzz around it, is often overlooked in the workplace. If you’re feeling down during this mandated phase of work from home, I encourage you to reach out to a professional or simply call up a friend to talk things through. Nothing can replace that human connection.

That being said, I hope you’ve found one or two of these extensions to be a good fit for your working style. If you have a favorite not listed here, or if you have other quick tips for staying sane while working from home, please shoot me a comment below.

As always, keep collaborating!

Virtual Collaboration Workspaces – The Big Two

Setting up a remote collaboration environment for your team can seem a daunting task. Our workflows generally utilize a large number of different applications and communication between coworkers is often scattered across multiple channels.

It can be tough to track all these different avenues of collaboration, especially during this unprecedented rise in distributed teams and remote work. That’s where collaboration apps come in. These apps consolidate all of your team’s communication and collaboration into one environment. The benefits are immense. No longer do you have to check email, text, calls, and comments on documents. All the information you need to stay up to date is delivered in one place.

Obviously this is a tall order for any application to fulfill. Different collaboration apps have different ways of approaching this problem. Highlighting all of the features that the leading apps incorporate would take a book (or 10), so let’s take a look at the two most popular options and identify the kinds of teams that would benefit most from implementing them.

Microsoft Teams and Slack – utilized by 91 and 65 of Fortune 100 companies, respectively – are no doubt the top dogs in this collaboration app domain.

Slack

There’s no denying that Slack is a powerhouse. Originally developed in-house by game developers to speed up and simplify communication, it has grown from its tech-focused roots to be approachable by industries of all types.

What Slack lacks in visual configuration, it more than makes up for in messaging capability and external integration potential. Slack’s backronym – Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge” – really speaks to the core focus of this app. Search power and bite-sized information sharing dominate the Slack experience, making it perfect for fast-paced, agile teams.

Though it has made large strides in engaging the more typical office worker, there’s no doubt that Slack performs best when operated by a more tech-savvy team. Utilizing backslash commands, setting up workflows, and creating custom bots really bring out the power of this platform.

Pros

No need for users to create specialized Slack account – any personal email account can be added.
Initial setup is simple and the environment grows with you.
User control of notifications and personal configuration is unmatched.
Pinned messages make highlighting important information quick and simple.
Powerful integrations allow you to link all of your commonly used collaboration tools.

Cons

Visual configuration is lacking in comparison to competitors.
Only having two levels of grouping communication (Workspaces and Channels) can add additional administration work.
App integrations can be unintuitive to the less tech-savvy.

Slack is for you if:

You are part of a rapidly growing, agile team.
You primarily want a communication and information sharing interface.
Your team is tech-savvy and is looking for an environment that innovates along with them.

Microsoft Teams

For a long time, Slack has been the go-to option for enterprises looking to get into remote collaboration. Microsoft wants to upend that assumption with Teams. At the time of this writing, Teams has just overtaken Slack in market share and looks to outpace the growth of the once-defending champion for some time to come.

Already, the Teams video and chat interface are beginning to cannibalize what was once the supremacy of Skype for Business in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Though Teams is a much younger platform – officially launching in 2017 – it brings with it Microsoft’s signature maturity and manageability. This means it will be very attractive to those companies who already perform the majority of their work using Microsoft collaboration apps.

Pros

App integrations are easy and visually intuitive.
Comes with Microsoft’s excellent Office 365 suite.
Powerful administration and configuration tools keep things simple for users.
The best video chat capabilities in its class.
Security measures and policy compliance are easy to apply.

Cons

Full versions require all users to be a member of the tenant’s domain name. That is, you have to create a new account under the business email domain for any new user.
Setting up properly may include more intensive configuration planning.
User personal configuration is lacking.

Teams is for you if:

You already use Microsoft Office for many of your business needs.
Your organization has to comply with various information policies or otherwise values a high level of security.
You want to keep your working space centralized in a core environment.

Honorable Mention – Discord

While Slack was made by gamers, Discord was made for gamers. However, its utilization doesn’t stop there.

Whereas Slack and Teams have made their names in the workplace coordination space, Discord has been adopted as a standard for building online communities. Among the groups that have used Discord to organize community development are block-chain developers, podcasting groups, stock traders, and, of course, gaming communities.

It’s unique customization abilities, always-on voice chatting space, ease of accessibility, and interactive bots make Discord an attractive option for organizers of all kinds.

While not nearly as professional as Slack or Teams, Discord has definitely found its niche and plays it well. Expect to hear more about it in the near future.

Which will you choose?

While I have listed three of the biggest virtual collaboration workspaces in this article, there are many more options out there and more being developed every year.

If you think I’ve left any big ones out or have an amazing app of your own that you’d like to highlight, shoot me a comment and let’s keep collaborating!

Your Data for You

A how-to on improving your life with personal data.

In recent years, the tracking of personal data has gotten a bad rap. We continuously hear about how corporations and campaigns are influencing us with the information they’ve captured from our interactions with the digital world.

Don’t get me wrong, I think these are important issues that need to be addressed. I just also think that these stories have pushed the words personal data into a realm of negative connotations, and that’s a shame.

Our personal data is so much more than a tool that corporations can use to sell us things. It’s a window into who we are as a person. Our habits, preferences, progressions. It can give us insight that our memories and the stories we tell ourselves simply cannot.

Around five years ago, I became determined to become physically lean. I’ve never been overweight, but I was always holding some extra pounds and I wanted them gone. I went through the typical gauntlet of weight-loss strategies; intermittent fasting, keto, doing hours of HIIT. A year later and nothing much had changed.

I decided to go back to the basics. The formula for losing weight is that calories consumed must be less than calories burned. I started tracking everything I ate and my body weight each day. A few weeks later, I had a baseline for how many calories I burned daily. I adjusted my diet and within four months I had hit my goal weight!

Since that time, I have used insights from my personal data to correct my sleep schedule, simplify my weekly errands, control my budget, and become overall a more happy, productive, and efficient individual.

I’ve found the benefits of keeping up with my data to be:

It keeps me honest.
I’m more aware and purposeful with my actions.
I can see proof of improvement and progress towards my goals.
I compare progress against myself, not against the accomplishments of others.

Tracking calories and body weight can give you an edge up in achieving your fitness goals.

Tracking your personal data is easier than ever. Our phones track our screentime and location, banking apps make viewing your spending habits a breeze, and Fitbit-like devices can even tell us our heart rate and sleep cycles!

Below I’ve outlined my simple 7 steps to creating personal change with your data. You don’t need fancy tracking apps, machine learning, or advanced algorithms. In fact, you could do all this with a pen and paper! Though I personally recommend a spreadsheet.

1. Outline Your Goal

Yes, goal singular. If we’re going to be practicing a new method, we don’t want to be juggling several priorities at the same time. Much can be written about how you should identify and structure your goals. For this process, we’ll stick with simply making it a S.M.A.R.T. goal. That stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. Outlining your goal in this manner will make it easier to create small steps and see your progress.

2. Define Your Metrics

If you’ve outlined your goal well, it should be fairly simple to think about what daily or weekly steps it would take to achieve it. Turn these steps into something you can quantify. For example, if your goal is to read 10 books this year your metric might be how many pages you ready daily or how many chapters weekly.

3. Track Your Data

Many of the goals we make for ourselves are based around improvements to things we already do. If that’s the case for you, it’s best to track the metrics you made in the last step for a week or two BEFORE you try to make improvements. This is to give you a baseline and give yourself a better understanding of what’s realistic in relation to your other commitments. Depending on your goal, this data may already be available and easy for you to access.

If your life is pretty chaotic at the moment or you want more context to be considered with your metrics, try keeping a simple daily journal to go along with the data.

4. Evaluate and Create Your Strategy

Now that you’ve created a baseline, you can create an actionable plan for attacking your goal. Be strategic and realistic about what you can commit to. What is the minimum change you can make to get the maximum results?

5. Build Change Into Your Habits

You probably won’t hit that weight loss goal if going to the gym is a “when I can fit it in” thing. Make progress towards your goals a habit and a priority. You’ll also want to consider how the tracking of your data fits into your habits. Consistency is key, and will power is finite.

6. Keep Tracking Your Data

In my experience, after integrating change into your habits, this is the most impactful thing you can do to stay consistently moving towards your goals. Not only does tracking the data keep you honest, it also gives you the ability to do our next step.

7. Review Your Progress

This step is especially essential if you’re relying on automatic data capture instead of manual entry through paper or spreadsheet. Reviewing your data allows you to see progress and identify possible areas of improvement to your strategy. Warning: Seeing proof of your improvement can be intoxicating!

Speaking of changing your strategy, doing so should be kept to designated times of review. It’s important to trust the process in order to achieve the consistency needed for success.

I love the field of personal analytics because it gives us another tool by which to determine the truth of our own life and direct it how we see fit. I hope you can use the tools I’ve given in this article to create a better you, however you define that for yourself.

What’s one thing you can start tracking today?

If you have your own story about a personal analytics journey, please share it in the comments below!

1. What problem am I trying to solve?

Unless you’re just starting out, there was probably a breaking point that began the search which led you to this article. Something that made you say “we can’t keep doing it this way”. Defining the problem is the first step to simplifying any decision, and choosing your project management software is no different. Some common problems are

It takes forever to find the information I’m looking for.
I’m not able to track the progress of tasks or projects.
I can’t find a way to visualize my schedule.

It’s impossible to list all the problems you could be facing here. Your situation is unique. The important part is to list what problem(s) you’re trying to solve so you can be on the lookout for potential solutions. You might even add items to this list during your search as you come across solutions to issues you didn’t even know you had.

2. Who needs access?

Data security and management is a big issue these days, and for good reason. Cloud storage is changing the work-space by enabling collaboration and access from anywhere, but these increased capabilities also increase the number of options you have to choose from. The good thing is you can narrow down your relevant stakeholders to three main groups:

Employees

Will they all need to see everything in the system or should project managers have higher priority? Will remote workers have the same capabilities? Do you need a way to divide the system into separate teams?

Clients

Do you want to collaborate with your clients through the platform? Do they need updates on the status of your product or service?

Shareholders

How much visibility do shareholders require in regards to day to day operations?

The project software available can have many different levels of access. Remember to think outside the box when choosing and designing your system for visibility. Maybe there’s no access level specifically for clients, but you can add them to a specific board that shows only the progress of their product; there are limitless possibilities. The features you should look for regarding this question are access levels and creating walled project areas.

3. Am I dealing with sensitive information?

This one is pretty straight-forward. If you’re involved with personal data, secret clearances, or other sensitive information, a login and password probably aren’t going to cut it. You’ll need to limit your options to project software that provides additional security measures such as dual-factor authentication.

4. What collaboration features do I need?

Features, features, features. While many of the other questions in this article can be boiled down to software features, what I’m talking about here are the ones that are directly used in your workflow. I’ve created a somewhat comprehensive list of capabilities below. I recommend pulling from this and creating a list of your own that is ordered from most to least important.

• Cloud Storage
• Multiplatform (Mac, PC, iOS, Android)
• Tagging and Assigning
• Notifications
• Chat
• Due Dates and Scheduling
• Approval Processes
• Simultaneous Collaboration on Documents and Tasks
• Scheduling Visualization
• User Control Levels
• Version Tracking and Control
• Information Archiving
• Time Tracking
• Screen Sharing
• Progress Tracking
• Video Chatting
• Changelogs
• Checklists

5. What’s my project management style?

Do you like to work agile or are you more of a waterfall team? While many applications provide a combination of both, a little digging can show you that they’re built on one ideology or another.

If you’re not sure which style you prefer, or you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out this article.

6. What kind of information am I storing?

Does your workflow consist of capturing many individual data points or are you dealing with large unstructured documents? Is comprehensive and organized storage a priority or are your projects one and done? Are the files you’re dealing with absolutely massive?

To answer these questions and more, I recommend mapping out the life cycle of your data. Each project management software will have it’s own pros and cons in relation to this question. If you’re storing lots of data points, maybe you’ll want something that works with spreadsheets or input forms. Large files? Many project management applications have data upload limits.

7. How fast am I scaling?

This is a big one. If you’ve ever gone through a complete change management process, you know how time-consuming and frustrating it can be. Projects get put on hold, there are mountains data to transfer, and you may have to run both systems simultaneously before making a full switch.

You don’t want to be going through this every year. That’s why you need to choose a project management system that will scale with you. Something that’s not complete overkill, but will be able to manage your workflow for the foreseeable future. Things you might want to consider regarding this questions are data and user limits, personnel management, and data analytics capabilities.

8. What other systems does this need to talk to?

You likely already have solutions for managing your accounting, HR, and marketing systems, and you may have many other applications that you see as essential to running your business. Interoperability between those systems and your project management software can be a tremendous time-saver. Whether it’s through direct communication or automating CSV data transfer, you’ll want to make sure that the solution you choose can communicate easily with your other apps.

9. What kind of tech support will I get?

There’s no point in implementing productivity software if the time it saves you is eaten away by the time you spend fixing it. Make sure the solution you choose is backed up by a team of professionals or that there are plentiful resources and an active community around keeping things running smoothly.

10. How much is this worth to me?

Many people look at price first. I listed it last because I wanted you to consider the full implications of your choice in software. There’s nothing wrong with free, I personally choose to use many free solutions myself, but I want you to think about it this way. How valuable will this solution be to me and my business?

Now that you’ve got a basic framework down, it’s time to get going and find your best fit! If you’re looking for easily digestible information and reviews I recommend checking out G2. They make comparing products easy and intuitive.

Step 1: Choose a PM Software. Step 2: Conquer the World.

Keep in mind that while choosing one product may make things simpler, a combination of different applications might be the right solution for you. The good news is that most of these apps are built around connecting with other productivity software, so you’ll have no trouble mixing and matching!

If all of this seems a bit much, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at yourfriend@sstac dot net. I can help you map out your business processes and sort through the hundreds of options to find the right solution for you!

Happy solution hunting, and remember to Keep Collaborating!