Best 5 Smart Productivity Tools For Freelancers

With millions of people across the globe choosing to leave traditional jobs and do freelancing, the gig economy is growing at a fast pace.

Apart from people switching over to work for themselves, businesses these days are also promoting a remote working environment, especially the early-stage startups. This change in working lifestyle brings along the benefit of flexibility. 

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, with freedom comes responsibility. While you have control over your schedule, the freedom of choice with clients and projects, and the flexibility to work from wherever you want, you are on your own in this journey. Being your own boss, you have to deal with the workload and the stress that comes along with handling everything alone.

With the ability to multitask, you also have to be careful when dealing with challenges of time-management and productivity as a freelancer. Without the boss overlooking your shoulder and strict deadlines to follow, there are higher chances of you easily getting distracted and wasting your time. 

Related: 6 Important Daily Blogging Schedule For Bloggers

Your companions in this journey to tune out the distractions and make a successful freelance career are these productivity tools that we explore together further in this post.

Trello

A project management tool, Trello helps freelancers manage their tasks and assignments efficiently. A web-based application, helps you organize your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. On the application, you can create to-do lists and cards for each of your assignments. It makes planning your workload easier.

Related: Tips To Be Organized And Motivated From Inspiring Bloggers

If you are working with a team, then Trello is an ideal choice for group projects, as it allows you to manage your team conveniently. While it is really good for people who are remotely working, it is also really useful for individuals who want to improve their management across various projects and clients.

Instead of teams, as a freelancer, you can use this tool with clients when working on a project together. By doing this, your client can see your progress on the project, without you having to email them about it on a regular basis. 

Whenever you sign a deal with a new client, you can make a new card listing all the tasks to be done by the due date. This helps in saving time. A convenient, simple and flexible tool that can be synced across all your devices for freelancers to stay on track and meet deadlines. The tool is available for free with paid premium options too.

Evernote

Works like a handy notebook, Evernote is the best note-taking tool that helps save all information in one place that can be synced across all your devices. Whenever you get an idea or remember something either while driving or going for a swim on the beach, you can note it down quickly on this tool. With this you don’t have to worry about carrying a book everywhere or relying on your memory for everything. 

Wehn starting with a new project, you can use it to write down all the ideas and details related to it to stay organized and be on track. You can create to-do lists, checklists, plans, set reminders or create notebooks on it.

On Evernote, along with writing down your notes, you can add web links and attach files (PDFs, images, voice notes, etc) too. It is a scannable app that helps convert paper content into digital form. 

If you want to use it for personal work, you can use its basic free version for note-taking. However, depending on your needs, if you want to collaborate with your clients on this, you can select the paid version too.

Refrens.com

A wholesome platform that has various financial management tools for your freelance business. As a freelancer, you can create and send professional looking tax compliant invoices to your clients to collect faster payments.

Just like invoices, you can create unlimited quotations and estimates too. It also gives you an option to add a payment gateway and allows you to collect international payment too at the most competitive rates. For financial management, the platform enables you to record your expenses and keep track of your whole profit and loss. 

In the race of getting things done on time and meeting the deadlines, you might forget about reminding your clients for timely payments. This tool allows you to set auto reminders to prompt your clients for paying on time. The tool is free forever and can be easily accessed from anywhere through your mobile or desktop.

It also sends email alerts to you in real-time. You can also make a profile on the platform and join its network of various business providers to get new clients. You can make a portfolio on it by adding your skills and past work on it. Resulting in higher sales in less time and effort for you. 

Buffer

To build a strong online presence, it is crucial to have your profile on various social media platforms. To get identified and acknowledged you need to build a network, create engaging content, and maintain consistency on various popular platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Buffer is a social media management tool. It allows you to share content simultaneously from anywhere on the web on all your social networks easily. 

With your busy schedules, it works as a helping hand to manage your multiple social media accounts. You can update it with your scheduled posts, analyze results, and engage with your followers. You can be up-to-date and stress-free by planning and scheduling posts in advance through it.

You can analyze your social media marketing results and gain valuable insights through it. Through its web extension, you can integrate Buffer with various other websites. As a freelancer, focusing on your marketing is a must, hence, this is a free tool to enhance your marketing efforts.

Toggl

Being a freelancer, time can be a major challenge for you. The saying ‘time is money’ stands true in the freelance marketplace. With so much work at hand and dealing with multiple clients, there are chances of you missing the deadlines.

Many freelancers even charge money on the basis of per hour of work. Toggl is a time management tool that helps you easily keep track of time. You can see how much time you are spending on each project or task. 

As a freelancer, effective time management is a priority for you. With Toggl you can do online time tracking and enable their reporting service. You can access the tool from various devices including its browser extension that allows you to sync all the entries automatically across various devices.

You can integrate it with various websites. Once you start working, the tool activates its features like timeline management, tracking reminders, idle detection, pomodoro timer to help you focus on your work and stay concentrated. You can integrate your calendar events and turn it into time entries too. 

Freelancing requires you to have diverse skills and deal with various aspects alone. While you are an expert in the field that you work in, or other works use these tools to help and support you. With the right tools, you can increase productivity and become more efficient. Doing so, you will be able to fully enjoy the perks that the freelancing lifestyle offers you. 

WHICH ONE IS YOUR FAVORITE TOOL TO USE?

READ MORE ABOUT PRODUCTIVITY HERE:

• If you are a freelance writer, know the ‘5 Lessons on Being a More Productive Writer’ by Neil Patel.
• Being self-employed, access this productivity guide ‘How to Be Productive When You Don’t Have a Boss’ on the Hubspot blog.