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5 free must-have apps for your return to the office

Goodbye, comfy home. Hello, commutes and cubicles. These five essential apps cost nothing and will help you ease your way back into office life.

[Source photo: Shutterstock/Venkat Reddy (Fast Company Middle East)]

It was fun while it lasted, but companies all over the place areĀ starting to summon their employees back to the office.

If youā€™re a bit rusty when it comes to in-office life, thatā€™s understandable. But there are some tools you can leverage in order to make the transition less jarring.Ā Here are some of the most helpful freebies.

SLEEP CYCLE

If you find yourself in the unenviable position of having to, you know, be somewhere on time in the morning, youā€™ll appreciate this app. For starters, it monitors your sleep for patterns of snoring, coughing, and other unpleasantries that can make for a restless night. Youā€™ll then get a sleep score each morning along with tips to improve your sleep moving forward. But its best feature, in my humble opinion, is the built-in alarm clock with a customizable ā€œwake windowā€ that detects when you begin to stir and, if it senses youā€™re in a light sleep phase, will wake you as long as youā€™re within your window. Itā€™s much better than a blaring alarm clock at the same exact time each dayā€”Iā€™d rather wake up refreshed at 6:20 a.m. than be ripped out of a deep sleep at 6:45 a.m.

The basic app is free and plenty fully featured, while the $30-per-year premium version adds additional tracking, cloud backup, and a smattering of other features.

A SOFT MURMUR

Once you get to the office, you might notice something that you havenā€™t had to deal with for quite some time: noise! Yes, the nonstop chatter that plagues every open-office layout is back. Plug in your headphonesā€“donā€™t forget them at home, whatever you doā€“and fire up the great, freeĀ A Soft MurmurĀ website.

You have your pick of 10 ambient sounds, which you can mix together to block out distracting office noises. If you find a mix you like, you can save it and itā€™ll be waiting there for you the next time you load up the site, no account needed. Thereā€™s also a timer feature, which is helpful if youā€™re dozing off to sleepā€”donā€™t sleep in the office unless your company is cool with thatā€”or youā€™d like to devote a specific chunk of time to a task.

The site itself is free and easy to use. You can access 13 additional sounds with the pro version, which costs $9 a year.

BREAKTIMER

Donā€™t just sit at your desk like a lump all day: Remember to move around a bit. Those mid-day workouts and walks-on-a-whim are much harder to come by when youā€™re in the office. Thereā€™s a great free app for Windows, Mac, and Linux calledĀ BreakTimerĀ whichā€”you guessed itā€”lets you know when itā€™s time to get up and move around.

You can customize the frequency and lengths of each break, and thereā€™s a nifty little ā€œidle resetā€ feature that detects when youā€™ve been away from your computerā€”presumably not sitting like a lumpā€”and moves the countdown to your next break accordingly.

WAZE LIVE TRAFFIC

When I worked full-time in an office, this trick was a godsend for me each day. Head to Waze.comā€”it doesnā€™t matter if you use the Waze app or notā€”and youā€™ll see a live traffic map. Enter your work address and home address in the driving directions box in the upper-left corner. This will send you to a page that shows you how long itā€™ll take to get from the office back home and which routes are best.

The site also creates a custom URL for you that stores your office address and your home address. Add this site as a bookmark in your browser and, assuming you have a bit of flexibility about when you can leave work, keep checking this as you get closer to quitting time.Ā Once you notice the time to get home start to creep up, itā€™s time to jet.

MEALIME

After a long day of work away from home, thereā€™s little worse than trying to figure out what youā€™re going to make for dinner once you finally make it back. Thankfully,Ā Mealime makes weekly meal planning about as easy as it gets. With a focus on easy, healthy recipes, you tell the app which kinds of foods you like, select a handful of meals, and itā€™ll create a customized grocery list for you.

Head to the store, grab what you need, and thatā€™s about it. When youā€™re ready to cookā€”which takes less than 30 minutesā€”follow each mealā€™s step-by-step directions.

The free version of the app has plenty on offer to get you going, while the $50-per-year pro version adds members-only recipes, robust nutritional information, enhanced customization, and a few other goodies.

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