After eleven years of freelancing, I’ve used many tools – some that were total crap and some that I can’t live without. As a freelancer, time is always in demand and there is never enough of it. So any tools that can save me time and boost my productivity are a welcomed. There are a lot of tools you can add to your freelancer toolbox, and here are a few of my all-time favorites.
- FreshBooks (online accounting software) – I used QuickBooks for years, but I found it difficult to use and it never really added up correctly. It’s expensive and you have to upgrade which just adds up to more $$. FreshBooks provides fantastic online accounting that’s cheap and easy to use. And they update their services regularly so you never have to worry about managing your own upgrades. FreshBooks also offers document storage, a client interface, support ticketing – all at one low price. Cheap and easy to use…what more could you ask for?
- MailChimp (online e-newsletter software) – I’ve used Constant Contact and iContact for e-newsletters, but MailChimp beats them all. It’s very easy for even a novice to use and a starter FREE package includes 500 contacts and 3000 outgoing emails so you have a significant opportunity to test their service. I like their pay-as-you-go pricing structure and they do a great job offering loads of marketing resources.
- Google Documents, GMail and Calendar – I use these three free tools together to help me communicate with my team. I use MS Outlook at my desk, because frankly, I’m old school. But I sync my Outlook calendar to my Google calendar so my assistant can access my schedule. I forward my emails to GMail so I get them in both Outlook and GMail. And I share doucments through Google docs. All very handy and all very free.
- MS OneNote – OK, I know. It’s Microsoft. But it’s cheap and is a great way to keep all of my meeting notes, ideas and important data in one place. And it syncs across all of your computers so if you are running it on multiple machines, you are always running off the same data. Once you get over the fact that its MS, you’ll like it.
- Flock - From a productivity perspective, the Flock browser can’t be beat. Based on Mozilla’s Firefox, it enables you to enable all of the flexibility of Firefox while integrating your social media profiles. So, you can surf, research, blog and check Facebook from one handy interface. If you haven’t checked out Flock, it’s worth a look. Easily integrated functions make it a win-win for busy folks.
Tell me about the tools you love. I’d love to know what else might be out there!
