I am a self employed working from home, parent of young children, and forgetful socializer. That means that combining meetings and work talks with my colleagues in several publications with a social life distributed in my own range of chat applications it can be quite difficult.
I’m not even a big social media person, but I even have to use Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google email and chat, along with Telegram, WhatsApp, text messages and Twitter. Each. Unique. Day. That can often seem impossible to follow, leaving me stressed, distracted, and paranoid that I might be missing a very important message.
Fortunately, I found an app that makes it possible: the Workplace Organization Tool. ram box.
Simplified work and play, de-stressed
I hate notifications. The constant beeps and reminders that someone else needs something from me can seem like a lot sometimes. But each chat app I use demands attention at different times throughout the day, and reaching for a different device because it started making noise or flickering while I’m in the middle of the flow can be incredibly disruptive.
Rambox helps me avoid that by letting me put all my notifications in one place. It is a fusion tool that brings together almost all the social and communication applications that you can think of. Supports a variety of instant messaging apps, email clients, social media accounts, and more. Having them all in one place simplifies management and means that when I’m at my desk working, I don’t need to stop what I’m doing just to reply to a message, it’s there. I also know that I’m not missing a thing if I haven’t looked at my phone in a while, and frankly, I can type a reply to someone on WhatsApp much faster on my desktop keyboard than on a touch screen.
It also makes adding new apps and chat services to my daily routine much more streamlined. When Digital Trends changed Slack for teams for our internal communications, all I had to do was add Teams to Rambox, and everything I needed was there, along with all the other apps and tools I use on a daily basis. I didn’t need to set up a completely separate app, there wasn’t an extra window I had to have open every day, and I didn’t need to make sure to remember to launch the app in the morning so I wouldn’t miss an important communication. of a great boss.
Free tier is good enough
Better yet, Rambox is completely free. The basic version comes with support for more than 700 applications, including all the most popular and important ones. There’s also real-time sync between my devices, so if I step away from the desk, I can use my phone or laptop and pick up where I left off. Rambox will ping you there if you don’t read a message on your desktop, so it’s easy to jump between the two. If you ever need everyone to leave you alone for a moment, you can switch to Focus mode.
The paid versions offer more, like a built-in spell checker and premium support, but are more geared toward organizations and businesses that set up Rambox for their workers.
For me, however, the free version of Rambox is more than enough, and has proven to be an absolute saving grace that keeps me from feeling buried under an avalanche of apps, notifications, and demands that would otherwise put an end to the endless screaming of “daddy, daddy” to shame.
It is not the only option
After talking about Rambox for a few hundred words, I must confess that, until very recently, I was using an extremely outdated version of Rambox prior to 1.0. Newer versions kept crashing, not installing and not logging into my accounts; it was a disaster. It seems that everything was fixed in the latest version, so I’m back on a secure and up-to-date version of the app, but I needn’t have been so stubborn. There are many alternative general messaging apps like this one.
If you want a slightly different set of features and pricing tiers, other popular options include Franzwhich includes a free spell checker; all in one messenger, which is totally free; the versatile Apptorio workspaces, which allows you to create custom collections of apps, files, and folders for certain projects; the Online focused station; or the entirely open source hamsket.
I don’t know which one would be right for you, and one of these might be even better for me. But for now, Rambox does the trick. Until it breaks or I start feeling overwhelmed again, it will continue to be my go-to for saving time and keeping in touch with people. Now, I just need to improve on the answer.
Editors’ Recommendations