The life of freelancing is often misunderstood. Many view freelancers as people who spend all day at home and on the Internet. However, most freelancers are always hard at work, working on their next piece or roping in a new client.
Perhaps one of the greatest upsides to being a freelancer is using whatever software you want. And if you’re a new or budding freelancer, you’ll want to pay attention to this list of 8 tools that can help any freelancer.
Security tools
1. Password manager
The integration of the Internet in all facets of society means that most Internet users have dozens of accounts. Creating secure passwords for all of them—remembering all of their passwords—is difficult. But it doesn’t have to be.
Password managers organize all of your passwords and store them in one “hub.” This means that users have constant access to their passwords (if they have the master password).
2. Virtual private network
There’s no telling who’s on a public network or what they’re doing. If you’re a freelancer who often uses public networks, install a Virtual Private Network or a VPN for short.
VPNs encrypt your device’s data, ensuring cybercriminals and ISPs can’t snoop and steal the data.
Time management tools
3. Calendly
Without a manager or supervisor to keep you in motion, it’s easy to miss out on meetings or forget assignments. But with Calendly, you don’t have to worry about that anymore!
Calendly functions like an advanced calendar, allowing you to set schedules for yourself, set availability times, and even enable integration with Google Calendar.
Financial tools
4. Freshbooks
Invoices are the lifeblood of freelancers. An invoice acts as a proof of transaction, showing how much a freelancer made and for what. If you’re a new freelancer in need of a program to generate invoices for you, take a look at FreshBooks.
FreshBooks creates invoices for you and organises them, meaning all your invoices are just a click away.
5. Coconut
One of the downsides of freelancing and entrepreneurship is that you don’t have anyone managing your taxes for you. The point is, managing finances as a freelancer can be difficult. But with Coconut, it doesn’t have to be.
Apps like Coconut allows freelancers to add all of their business accounts to the app. Once done, Coconut maps out all business expenses, sends reminders to pay, and automatically sorts money for taxes.
Productivity tools
6. Trello
Without proper organization, productivity suffers. If you find yourself juggling projects or forgetting a few details every now and then, take a look at Trello.
Trello allows users to create cards that contain information about projects and assignments. Trello works especially well when you’re sharing work with other people.
7. Hootsuite
What is the key to a successful business? In 2021, it’s social media! With proper management of social media, a business can explode in popularity and start raking in serious profit. But managing social media accounts in such an efficient way can be difficult, which is why social media managers should use Hootsuite.
Hootsuite allows users to schedule posts, view analytics, and view multiple accounts at once. It does require a monthly fee, but it’s more than worth it.
8. Grammarly
Winning over clients and customers not only requires charisma and a good product/service, but it also requires well-written emails.
Freelancers can run any email, letter, or presentation through Grammarly to make sure there aren’t any major grammatical issues present. Grammarly scans through a piece and searches for basic errors such as sentence fragments to more complicated concepts such as dangling modifiers.
Conclusion
Not every freelancer will need these eight tools. But most can find the use in some of them, at the very least. Read over this list and compare them to your daily routine and see which of these tools will benefit you the most.
