In the 1960s, the science fiction show Star Trek portrayed characters talking remotely to each other using “communicators” – palm-sized devices that flipped open. Decades later in 1996, Motorola released the world’s first flip phone.
This is simply one example of how developments in technology let us turn imagination into creation.
In 2014, Challenge created a tongue-in-cheek list of apps we wish we had to help us breeze through the more tedious aspects of work. Since then, technology has come far enough that many of these ideas have become a reality.
Here are some examples of tech solutions that can help us do less of the work we dread the most and focus on higher value work:
Oversee Your Team’s Workload
Staying on top of colleagues' ongoing tasks, monitoring their workload and tracking upcoming deadlines can be tough for managers, especially if the team is large.
Project management apps such as Zoho Projects and Trello can help by providing an overview of all projects, tasks and deadlines. Some also show at a glance everyone’s workload, allowing team leaders to assign tasks based on availability and ability.
Get Instant and Easy Approval
It can be time-consuming to send email after email to your superiors asking them to approve your work.
Some project management apps such as Asana and Monday.com also allow you to create and complete approvals with just a few clicks. The approvals function on Microsoft Teams easily compiles all the approvals you’ve sent or received. At the same time, you can see the status of the approvals – so you know who to chase because they haven’t responded.
If you want to keep things simple however, the chat function on SG-Teams will suffice. This can be an easier way to get approval for less complicated pieces of work.
Write Better
Do you often double-check your word choices and sentence structures with Google? Doing so for every email can be tedious and time-consuming.
Thankfully, developments in Natural Language Processing (where computers analyse text and voice data to understand human language) mean that artificial intelligence can do the heavy lifting for us.
Typing assistants such as Grammarly and Hemingway use AI-enabled algorithms to analyse your writing. Many go beyond simply checking spelling and grammar. The AI is advanced enough to detect the tone of your writing, telling you if it is too passive, informal or difficult to read.
Create Informative and Visually Appealing Slides
Having clean, nicely designed presentation slides can help to keep your audience engaged. But it takes experience and some design instincts to strike a balance between aesthetics and functionality.
This is where Microsoft’s PowerPoint Designer comes in. The subscription-based tool works like an assistant with an eye for design. It recommends photos to match the text on the slide, and detects visual elements for suggestions on how to place them within the design. It can also turn your lists, flowcharts and timelines into graphics.