Freelancing has become a common career path for many. While some find themselves in freelancing from the frustrations experienced in an 8-5 job, or the lack of one, many are freelancers by choice.

Either way, freelancing can be quite liberating. You are your own boss and have the freedom to work whenever from wherever. Freelancing allows a great work-life balance.

That said, freelancers need to put certain practices in place to remain at the top of their game. It is the only way to reap the real benefits of freelancing freedoms while remaining productive.

In this post, we compiled a list of 5 carefully selected productivity tools that will help you manage and organize your freelancing activities. Read through to understand how each of these tools can help you achieve better results in lesser time, and enjoy great leads and outcomes.

Productivity tools

You are your own manager. You, therefore, have to put your house in order. You need reminders, during other times you need to take important notes or stick to strict deadlines. There are other times when you will be on travel but need to monitor what your team members are doing back home. These tools will help you sort such scenarios and many others;

EmailAnalytics

As the old cliche goes, time is money and this tool gives you a review of how best you are using this resource by delivering daily reports to your inbox.

If you are a freelancer who is handling numerous customer correspondences or inquiries, then EmailAnalytics is the right tool for you. The tool will monitor your Gmail and G-suite activities and compile a report of your response time. This tool also monitors your entire team, so it’s easy to identify the communication gaps and fix them before they cost you some money.

EmailAnalytics provides you with a 14-day free trial. You can take advantage of this to see if the tool will make your work easier and to also learn your way around it before subscribing to the paid service.

Evernote

As a freelancer, your thoughts are not limited to a particular work environment. There will, therefore, be many instances when excellent ideas cross your mind but there is no notebook insight. But do you just let the idea slip away? Of course not. It’s during such times that Evernote comes in handy.

Evernote is a note-taking app that allows you to take important notes on your device and share them instantly. You can, therefore, share that marketing idea with your team as you sit on that train on your way back to town. The tool is also ideal for jotting other important things like to-do activities and any other important information that needs to be put down.

A virtual private network

Freelancing comes with a bunch of responsibilities. The security and safety of your devices and data is your responsibility. Fortunately, a simple VPN download can help take care of all your data security concerns. But why is a data security tool important for a freelancer? As a freelancer, you are likely to find yourself connecting your devices to multiple public and unsecured networks while on the move. That 5-minute connection to a public Wi-Fi network can expose your data to cybercriminals. A VPN prevents this from happening by building a security layer that keeps all your online interactions, such as transactions and browsing history, private. It makes the data invisible to third parties and other snoopers. This is especially important when you are connected to an unsecured network. A VPN is important for all freelancers and everyone who is using the internet on their device.

Trello

With a tool that allows you to set reminders, you can never go wrong in your freelancing journey. Trello helps you organize and manage projects much better. The tool allows you to plan your tasks, set, and stick to deadlines.

Trello has user-friendly interphase that allows you to take notes, supports voice notes and images. Clients can stay posted on the progress of their projects by accessing your board thanks to Trello's collaborative feature that grants them access. This productivity tool also has a search option that allows you to locate everything you need much faster.

It's easy to plan and manage work for your team with this tool. You can even monitor the status of both short and long term projects while on travel. As a freelancer, you may, however, notice that some local sites are not accessible from some locations and this might make it difficult to keep a timely check on your team’s progress.

Trello is ideal for freelancers who are managing multiple projects (both short term and long term).

Grammarly

Do not let lousy communications come in between you and a prospective business opportunity. Grammarly is an ideal tool that will help keep your spelling and grammar skills in check. This tool also analyses your clarity in communication and identifies the areas that need improvement.

As a freelancer, you need to create an impression of your keenness in detail. This tool helps you check through that email, that proposal, letter, and any other written correspondence. You can install Grammarly's extension for MS-Word or to your browser for quick checks whenever you are composing an email or submitting content on any other website.

Clear communication is important for productive engagements. Grammarly is best for freelancers whose tasks involve writing (emails, letters, invitations, proposals, etc).

Hubstaff

Why spend time manually recording your work when you can automate it? Hubstaff is a time tracking tool with several features that help you finish your freelance projects efficiently. It tracks your work and shows you the progress you’ve made over time, giving you a clear understanding of how you use your hours.

Hubstaff’s lightweight app quietly runs in the background while you concentrate on your tasks. Simply select the project that you want to track time to and get to work. Hubstaff can also track the apps you used and the websites you visited while you were working. The app calculates activity rates based on input from your keyboard and mouse, which gives you a clear image of your overall productivity.

In addition, Hubstaff includes an online invoicing feature that’s extremely useful for freelancers. You’ll be able to set billing rates for your projects, generate accurate invoices with one click, and accept client payments all in one app.

🌟 Extra Bonus

Milanote

When freelancing, you often need to communicate your ideas and projects visually to other people. This is where Milanote can help. Milanote is like working on a wall in a creative studio. It provides a free-form canvas to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. And they have an extensive library of templates to help with freelancing work - such as creative briefs and moodboards.

Bottom line: Find the right tool for your productivity

Freelancing is a diverse field. There are many freelancers, in different industries. What works for one industry may not be as beneficial in the other. However, time management, task scheduling, and security tools are important for all freelancers.
You may not know what works right for you until you’ve tried it out. Try to remain as consistent as possible and within no time, you will be able to notice increased productivity. You will be able to achieve more with less effort and stress.