Why we are building Astrid to help you focus when working from home.

Announcing Astrid, the personal productivity plugin for Asana and Trello to supercharge all your todos and cards.

As the corona crisis is forcing companies and people into working from home, the need to focus and create a distraction-free work environment has exploded.

Before COVID-19, 3 out of 4 workers say that they feel distracted at work. Now that companies are shifting to working from home, that number is likely even higher.

Struggling to focus while working from home?

If you’re like most others, you are checking your email and IM’s every sixth minute, spending 40% of your day multitasking in communication tools, and doing a quarter of your work on evenings and weekends (State of Work-life Balance 2019). Even before COVID-19, you were already playing catchup with broken deadlines and unfinished projects. What about now? Well, given that most of the world is under lockdown and you are working from your “home office” (sofa, kitchen table, or dining room), that problem is not likely to go away. Constant distractions, interruptions, and noise have now become a part of your everyday routine.

With the recent significant shift toward working from home, our way of working brings up challenges in belonging, routines, and the ability to focus, and get good work done.

In an extended period, this takes its toll on mental health and work satisfaction, and leaves you feeling more stressed, and less satisfied with the work you do.

But instead of focusing on what’s wrong, we want to celebrate the power of its opposite. Today we are announcing the birth of Astrid to help you get more done, no matter where you call your office at the moment.

Astrid is a personal productivity plugin for Trello and Asana users.

Astrid complements your existing workflow in Asana and Trello with a native macOS desktop layer that is instantly accessible and blazing fast.

Our proposition is straightforward; focus on one thing at a time, remove noise and distractions, and build powerful habits and routines to become a happier, more productive person.

We’re doing so with the fundamental idea that a single focus with the right challenge level, without distractions, can unlock a state where you solve problems, learn new things, and increase productivity — while having time to do you. It might sound simple, but millions of people are struggling with creating a distraction-free environment and accessing flow.

Staying focused for an extended period is a competitive advantage few people have. Although we love tech, we feel that we’re losing our sanity in this frantic email checking, social media overload, and distracting work environments. And things haven’t improved for the better with the recent and rapid shift to working from home.

Get in the zone, stay in the zone, and celebrate often

Astrid helps you get in the zone by helping with a daily morning routine to time block your day to understand your capacity and helps you off to a flying start by setting a focus and picking your most prioritized tasks for the day. Astrid helps you stay in the zone with distraction blockers and also completes your Trello cards and Asana todos without even leaving the app you’re working in.

To make every victory count, Astrid helps you digest your day by taking a moment to appreciate all the amazing things you have accomplished, and provides you with insights and data on when you are the most productive.

Astrid is zero clutter, distraction-free productivity — wherever you are working.

Meet the founders

Behind Astrid is the Swedish startup founders Ashkan and Per. They met at an event several years ago. Per was building a software company, and Ashkan was coaching leaders and CEOs. Later, they joined forces on an Edtech-startup. Both were practicing meditation, which led them to notice distractions in everyday life. Frustrated by the lack of tools to help you stay focused, they built a prototype that later became Astrid.

Per has the technical expertise and worked as product manager for several companies in the HR-tech and wellbeing space. Ashkan has commercial experience from starting and growing businesses in organizational and leadership development and growth.

We have a deep passion for building products that make the world a more beautiful place, and with Astrid, our stars aligned in building something that can serve people all over the world. We believe every company is a remote company. Astrid isn’t just building the future for remote work; it’s building the future of work.

Struggling to focus? We are here to help!

Working from home is way better with a personal productivity plugin that complements your card and todos. We are opening up for more users and waiving fees for the next few months.

We need early adopters like you to break new ground. Try out the product and let us know how we can help you stay productive.

*Wondering what happened to the old Astrid? Learn more here.