The awesomeness of being a freelancer or entrepreneur is that you decide how you want to work to get the job done. There are dozens of applications and freelancer tools out there that help you become more efficient and effective at whatever you need to do. They can range from free to pay-to-use but we cant seen to live without them. Freelancer tools wont make or break your company, but here are a few tools that you may find using over and over again.
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A a freelancer or entrepreneur, the tools that you use are going to vary depending on what you specialize in. In this article, we’ll go over tools that you should take advantage of regardless of the type of work you do.
For most people, we can break down the tools you’ll use into 4 main groups:
- Contract/Proposal management
- Money management
- Time management
- Utilities
Contract Management
Anytime you deal with a client or a project, you need to make sure you have a contract in place. A contract is there to spell out the expectations that you and the client has. It helps protect both parties interests as it defines what you are doing for the client, the time frames, cost, and expected outcomes.
Hello Bonsai – https://www.hellobonsai.com/ [$16/month or $24/month/user]
Hello Bonsai is simple online contract and project manager tool. You can use it primarily to send agreements to clients for them to sign from their emails or online or as your invoice management tool. It helps keep things simple and straight forward.
They’ve added additional features such as sending invoices out based on the agreement of your contract. You also have the options of sending out reminders as well as new invoices to your clients. A newly added option is the proposal options. You’re able to send off proposals to your potential clients and allow them to choose.
Money Management
Mint – http://mint.com (free)
Mint is one of the freelancer tools that lives online. It does an awesome job of letting you know about your spending habits. You can also easily use it to automatically categorize and organize income and expenses. You can also set goals for yourself and use Mint to tell you REALISTICALLY how to create them. Pretty slick. You connect your bank account(s) to Mint and it helps you keep track of spending and income in a meaningful way.
The reporting features that comes from this freelancer tools can give you foresight into your expected income and spending.
Alternative: Quickbooks http://quickbooks.com ($5/month)
I tried Quickbooks a few times in the past as well as the online version. The online version is the preferred route if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution. QB has a LOT of features that might make that $5/month fee very attractive, for sure.
List of financial freelancer tools can include additional apps that can help manage your money.
Time management
Rescue Time – Free – https://www.rescuetime.com/
Rescue Time is one of the freelancer tools to help you focus on your day. You install it on your computer or phone and it keeps track of the things you do. You have two main categories: Work and Entertainment. You get graded for how long you work versus play. You can set goals for yourself and RescueTime will keep track of what you’re actually doing.
It can measure how long you play games on your computer, how long you’re on Netflix, on Reddit, or any other sites. You can also set parameters such as your working hours and what programs constitute as “fun” versus “work”.
I love metrics and what better way to see where you’re leaking productivity than RescueTime.
Utilities
Slack – Free https://slack.com
Slack is a collaborative chatroom for your workspace that you can add to your collection of freelancer tools. You can create private chat rooms for your productivity team to talk about your project, deadlines, or general information. You can also create or join groups that have different topics or ideas. Create your own or join in on an existing group.
You can use it to keep tabs of your industry, connect with colleagues, or chit-chat with friends. Slack is great for working on and keeping tabs on projects that take a lot of people and a lot of moving parts. The ability to communicate in a chat room setting, and have offshoot private conversations, is what won me over.
Dropbox – Free for 2GB. Up to 1TB of space on paid plan
Dropbox is a dynamic synchronizing file stored on your devices. It automatically back things up to the cloud and allows you the ability to access the files and content from anywhere you want or need with your freelancer tools.
Dropbox is my main work space because it allows me grab files, share content, and move things around multiple machines whenever i need. I also use Dropbox to allow my clients a quick and easy way to send me files if needed.
Check it out here: https://db.tt/i1gKYQepsg
Skype – Free Skype-to-Skype
If you’ve never heard of Skype, then I feel bad for you. Skype is a great video and chat took that you can use to conduct conference calls. You can have a lot of people on a single call and see little to no degradation of performance. The ability to join from any device such as your phone, laptop, or table is a great way to let you work from anywhere.
Just slap in some headphones and you can jump into the call anywhere you want!
Evernote – Free
Evernote is an awesome note taking solution that allows you to save all of your notes online. You can jump onto your phone, laptop, tablet, or whatever device you choose. You can easily do search across all of your notes to find that information you’ve been looking for. For the paid version, you’ll have the option of OCR (optical character recognition; fancy way of saying it reads your handwriting)
Bonus – Equipment
Adding to your freelancer tools are a few hardware pieces you could pick up. You are not tied down to a specific location and can roam wherever you’d like. What type of equipment you’d be looking for almost always boils down to something that is going to power up your different devices.
High Capacity Charger
When out and about, you’ll need to have a way to juice back up your devices. One of my favorite devices to use is the Anker High Capacity Portable Charger ($42 on Amazon.com) to keep your devices charged when need.
Portable/Light Laptop
When you’re on the go, smaller and lighter is better. Ounces add up really quickly and device that can shave off ½ an ounce will be appreciated. Look into getting a light Chromebook such as the Asus Chromebook Flip ($497.50 on Amazon) that can be a table or a laptop when needed to reduce that weight. If you’re a developer, you’ll need a more horsepower to keep your build time down. I personally like the Dell XPS laptops that are carbon fiber bodies.
Check your Sack
Lugging your devices and work around is important when working remotely. Get yourself a backpack or satchel that is comfortable and can carry your work with you. I’ve checked out the 17.3 Inch Laptop Convertible Backpack ($45 on Amazon.com) as a great middle-ground for backpacks or over the shoulder.