Guest post contributed by Kristoffer
What apps are best recommended for freelance workers?
You have to be efficient as a freelancer worker. You can do this by finding the most useful apps to be more efficient in your work. Please feel free to go through some of our nifty suggestions for the most useful apps when you are a freelancer who works from home:
Freelancers are expected to be organized. You can be working for several clients a day. Thus, you have to make sure that everything is sorted out appropriately. You have to systematize and put things in order. Below are some of the best “organizing” apps for freelancers out there:
- Google Calendar is a top favorite for those who want to keep track of their deadlines and schedules by noting and keeping up with your professional and personal obligations.
- Evernote is a very user-friendly app. You can brainstorm and jot down ideas for content and stuff or you can use it for some notations you will have during a work session. It will allow you to list some tasks you might have remembered during your work hours without really breaking your momentum at work.
- Dropbox is a useful app when you want to store your files on the cloud. Through Dropbox, you can always access your files using a laptop or mobile phone. This is a very convenient way of sharing files with other people. It will definitely make collaboration and delegation an easy thing to do.
- If you need constant reminders, you can make use of OH DON’T FORGET This is a text message-based reminder tool. It is quite impossible for you to miss a text when you have your phone with you. You can make scheduled reminders or send them right away. This is a useful deterrent for procrastination. You can also make use of it to remind yourself during a busy day to take a look at a client, follow up sales pitches and any other important but not quite easy to forget errands.
Freelancers are ought to be masters of efficient time management. This is simply because most of them are paid by the hour. Thus, you have to work as fast as you can without compromising the quality of your work. You will not know how long you can complete the project and how much you will be earning or even how much to charge your clients. Here are some apps which you can be a more time-efficient freelancer:
- Rescue Time is an app which can help you figure out how you spend your hours. Whether on email, social media or other websites, you will surely visualize and appreciate where time should be spent for. Once you have a better grasp and sense of your time and how much time you allocate for your regular task, you can organize your to-do list like a pro.
- Harvest is another working hour tracker and allows you to create invoices to send to your clients.
- Timely is another time tracking app. However, you can make use of it as a scheduling tool as well.
- TeuxDeux is an easy to-do list app. It appears in a calendar format and will allow you to make estimations for the number of hours needed to complete a task.
The administrative side of working as a freelancer can be a tough challenge. You have to stay on top of your invoices. Or else, you will not be paid on time. These apps are our recommendations for all your contacts, invoices and other aspects of the boring business world. Here are some of our accounting and business apps for you:
- Wave is on top of our list. This is a free (yes, you heard it right!) app which allows you to be the accounting whiz that you are not. This will help you in efficiently tracking your income, expenses, receiving payments, processing of your invoices as well as filing for your taxes.
- Aynax is an app that will help you create free and professional prepared invoices. You can make use of Aynax to email invoices to your client.
- Shake is another app which allows you to create contracts for your business endeavors. You can send the contract directly to your client. Plus, you can sign a document and send them directly to your clients.
For those freelance writers, we came up with some of the most notable apps we have ever encountered. When you work as a freelance writer, you are expected to be efficient, productive and fast. There are tremendously stressful deadlines to beat and clients to please. Thankfully, there are tools and apps that can help you figure out your job well.
- Write is a new app (with a cloud version in 2015). You can avail of its free version though. Write is a cool app that is a mixture of Microsoft Word functionality with the productivity of the hacker-oriented app called Sublime and the efficiency of Evernote in taking down notes. This is a combo app of several tools in a roll. When you use Write, you can definitely create anything from short write-ups, articles, and notes.
- WriteChain is a user-friendly app which allows writers to keep track of the word count as they go. For writers who are fond of setting their target goals in a day, you will definitely need this app.
- Manuscript is an app that allows you to improve your ability in writing. It helps intense writers to make the most out of their work. You can keep track of word counts, page counts and other information and supplies that you will need with a Dropbox app. This Manuscript app is not selective about the size and type of file you will upload for editing.
- Daedalus Touch is an app that is geared towards creating editing and filing organization to be more enjoyable. It has the capability to transfer files and folders from Box.com, WebDAV, and Dropbox. It also allows users to open zipped text files. Daedalus Touch allows you to export document, multiple sheets, RTF, PDF, ePub e-book files, zip archive, iOS clipboard, and documents as well as iOS apps.
- iThoughts is an app that will visually organize your ideas, thoughts, and information. This is said to be one of the best mind-mapping tools in the market. You can make use of this tool with your iPad and iPhone as you work through project planning, outlining of meetings, reading notes and a lot more.
- iaWriter is perfect for those who frequently write online. You will have to deal with formatting which can be a serious time-waster. However, iaWriter uses a markup language to format the posts for HTML use. This will help you gain more focus in writing than dealing with unpleasant distractions. You can also sync your iCloud and Dropbox folders if you want to write on these kinds of platforms.
Takeaways
Living a freelancer’s life will demand a lot of changes. To help you live up to the demands of the freelance industry, you have to be efficient at all times. You are expected to be more organized, responsible and always on top of your game. There are plenty of tried and tested apps for freelancers which you can use. These apps can help you achieve a certain level of productivity. If you have any apps to suggest and that you swear are effective, please feel free to comment below! We would love to hear from you, too!
Author Bio
Kristoffer Canimo is a writer who strictly cannot start his day without coffee. When he’s not writing or reading, he spends his time playing League of Legends. He’s currently based in Manila, Philippines and loves huskies, midnight walks, and Raymond Carver. He freelance writes for a company that provides excellent painters in Sydney called A One Korean Painting.
