Communication is not easy. Especially at a professional level, poor communication can ruin relationships and, eventually, entire businesses. It’s hard to communicate effectively even in a small business with a few employees, let alone in an organization of hundreds or thousands. Then how do you succeed at it? Is there any secret? First, you need to learn the real importance of effective business communication. Then, put your best efforts into constantly improving this aspect within your team.

One of the best parts of my job is how diverse my team is. As the Head of Revenue Marketing at Asana, the people I work with are spread across the globe and timezones. Even when everyone returns to the office, I’ll still have a distributed team with team members in the US, Asia, Europe, and Australia. Given the makeup of my team, I had a lot of experience managing a distributed team even before the world suddenly shifted to remote work.

Many employees dread asking for a time off request at work in today’s world because they think their employer would reject it. But then, taking some time away from your office can help you to create a work-life balance. So if you plan your proposal well, not causing your employer problems, you will have a high chance of getting those days off.

How many projects do you have on your plate right now? We live in a world where, at any given moment, we could be working on five things at once: team projects, matrixed projects, individual projects, and more. When you’re trying to keep all of the balls in the air, what’s a straightforward simple thing that can minimize stress and have a positive impact? Centralized communication.

See why adopting Slack just isn’t enough for your remote workflow. Talk is cheap— except when it’s getting in the way of productivity, as then it becomes rather wasteful. The most common mistake when working remotely is to think that discussion is the same thing as collaboration, when in reality it’s only one component of it.