The work of a freelancer requires a lot of self-discipline and good organizational skills. It is worth using tools that can help you manage your daily tasks and responsibilities to ensure the best possible work efficiency. If you are looking for top solutions on the market, we have something for you! Here is a list of 5 proven tools for freelancers in 2020. Check it out!
1. Task management
Trello
Cost:
Basic plan: $0.00
Business Class plan: $9.99 / month
Enterprise plan: $20.83 / month
Let’s start with a tool that many freelancers can’t imagine working without, Trello. It is a simple web, desktop, and mobile task management app. The tool allows you to organize projects, add new tasks, assign deadlines, and monitor the progress. A significant advantage of the application is its ease of use, intuitiveness, and user-friendly interface. Moreover, Trello connects to other apps such as Google Drive, or Jira, which allows effective communication and collaboration throughout every stage of the projects.
Trello boards can be freely modified and shared with other users. It is also possible to create common boards for the team responsible for the selected project.
Trello is used by large corporations, startups, and freelancers alike. Although the application has existed on the market for several years, it still has many fans and is considered to be one of the best and easiest to use among project management tools.
Consider also:
2. Appointment and meeting scheduling apps
Calendly
Cost:
Basic plan: $0.00
Premium plan: $8.00 per user / month
Pro plan: $12.00 per user / month
The work of a freelancer is related to many meetings with clients. To organize the time well and to avoid planning several calls at the same time by mistake, you can use a tool.
One of them is Calendly – a simple easy-to-use scheduling software, which allows users to send a link to showcase free slots in their calendar for other people to book. Since Calendly connects to Google, Office 365, Outlook, and iCloud calendar, your time will never be double booked!
Consider also:
3. Time reporting & invoicing
FreshBooks
Cost:
Lite plan: $6.00
Plus plan: $10.00 / month
Premium plan: $20.00 / month
Select plan: Custom
As a freelancer, you certainly send many invoices and bills to your clients. This activity can also be supported by an easy-to-use application that will speed up the process.
One of the best invoicing and accounting software on the market is FreshBooks. It is a cloud-based tool for freelancers and small business owners which will help you with:
- creating and sending branded professional looking invoices,
- expenses tracking,
- generating financial reports,
- sending overdue invoice reminders,
- accepting online payments (PayPal, Credit Card, etc.).
Check and find out that accounting does not have to be complicated and burdensome at all!
Consider also:
4. Note-taking tools
Evernote
Cost:
Basic plan: $0.00
Premium plan: $7.99 per user / month
Business plan: $14.99 per user / month
Do you know this feeling? You urgently need your notes but can’t access them because they are on a different device than the one you have at the moment. Or maybe you lost all your notes because your device has been damaged or is nowhere to be found. You can stop it once and for all if you decide to use Evernote.
What’s important, this tool enhances productivity by allowing its users to capture their ideas and thoughts wherever they are. It is available for both smartphones and desktops, and works in the cloud so you’ll never lose your notes again! You can store various types of notes in the app – from standard text files to photos and even audio recordings!
Consider also:
5. Time tracking
Toggl
Cost:
Enterprise plan: custom pricing
Premium plan: $18.00 / month
Business plan: $9.00 per user / month
In a freelancer’s work, self-discipline is crucial. As we know, time is money, so we recommend using the time tracking app. Such tools can significantly increase your productivity and increase your income! One of the best and most popular solutions in this area is Toggl.
It is very intuitive and easy to use application to track time with a single click. It allows to switch between various tasks and generate reports that let you know what assignments take up most of your time.
Moreover, you can add Toggl as a Chrome extension, so it starts to work as soon as you fire up the web.
Consider also:
BONUS – a time-tracking software created by WEBSENSA
ClockTrace
Cost:
Free plan: $0.00
Pro plan: $8.00 / month
Finally, we would like to recommend to you a tool created by us. All the applications on our list are top-notch and useful, but we also decided to create something for you. We consider our solution a useful complement to this list.
For most freelancers, the end of the month is the hardest time. Checking calendar, emails, and notes – all these activities are usually very cumbersome and time-consuming. How about a tool to help you with that and automate the most tedious part? ClockTrace is an AI-based time tracking software that will make you forget about your troublesome duties and focus on your work.
How is it possible? The app monitors your activity in documents, programs, websites, and contacts, and then groups that activity into projects and tasks. Finally, it generates an automatic timesheet and allows you to customize it to your needs.
How does TK differ from similar solutions?
On our list we have already mentioned time tracking applications such as Toggl and Clockify, so what is the difference between them and ClockTrace? For example, the above mentioned applications work also in a browser, while ClockTrace is only a local application, so it takes better care of your data security.
What’s more, our tool is more intuitive and tailored to your needs. What does it mean? As a user, you have full control over how the application works. The app does not have to monitor all your activity and can block some programs or websites that should not be listed. You can even define how to round up your login time in generated reports.
ClockTrace is a perfect solution for:
- freelancer programmers,
- marketing specialists,
- graphic designers,
- students,
- lawyers,
- multi-project freelancers,
- home office workers,
- and many others!
If you want to stay up to date with ClockTrace’s new features, please follow our Facebook fanpage.
With modern tools, your work can become more efficient and productive. Most of them have a free basic version, so we recommend testing them and choosing the best one for yourself.
