Tools and Resources for Freelancers

Starting out as a freelancer presents a whole array of challenges that you might not have considered before starting out. Managing your own brand, sending out invoices, finding clients and storing your legal documents are just a few of the things that were surprisingly tough for me. Throughout my time as a freelance graphic designer, I ran into the same problems over and over which led me on a hunt for solutions. I wanted to be able to focus on my core business and needed the tools and resources to get rid of unnecessary tasks and headaches.

Luckily for you, I put together a list of tools and resources that are immensely helpful for any freelancer.

SolidGigs

Perhaps the most important task on the list is finding work. Finding clients can be very stressful, time consuming and expensive. This was the task that took up most of my time. I spent hours browsing through Upwork and Freelancer trying to find suitable projects with reasonable budgets. As you can imagine, this was not very enjoyable. SolidGigs promises to deliver the best hand-picked, freelance jobs on a weekly basis. This takes away the need to search each platform individually and allows you to focus on your projects.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a time-management and scheduling calendar tool that was created by Google in 2009. This is my favourite tool for managing my schedule and setting reminders.

Since the majority of people have a Gmail account, this is the gold standard among freelancers. They have recently added more features geared towards small business and freelancers which makes it especially user friendly. You can also have a separate calendar for personal tasks and appointments which you can easily aggregate into your business calendar for easy oversight.

TeslaThemes

Every business and freelancer needs a website. You can use social media but a professional website will add a level of legitimacy to your venture. TeslaThemes offers beautiful and modern WordPress themes that come with powerful features and premium support. Whether you are building a website for yourself or offer web design services to your clients TeslaThemes is a great option. All the themes are custom built and they offer support if you have any issues building your site. If you are not familiar with Wordpress, don’t be intimidated, it is super easy to use and manage.

Focus Booster

For freelancers, time management can be very difficult. Whether you work at home or from a shared workspace, you need to make sure to get things done efficiently. While discipline has always been a strong suit for me, I quickly realized that I needed help in keeping track of my time more precisely. That’s when I found Focus Booster, an online time built specifically for freelancers. The app helps you segment your time and complete tasks one by one.

Zervant

Invoicing clients was probably my least favorite task. It’s a tedious and repetitive process and in my case a real thief of joy. There are many invoicing apps available online but my favourite was Zervant, it’s an intuitive and easy to use invoicing tool. The best part you ask? It’s completely free, no time limit! You can easily add your services/products and client database which helps speed up the invoicing process. You can access the invoices in PDF, email and print.

Trello

Trello is hugely popular for a reason, it’s the easiest task management tool I have used and you can get started in a matter of minutes. You can add team members and manage your own to-do list across desktop and mobile. There are tons of options for customizing your process and collaborating with team members and clients. And yes, you guessed it, it is all completely free!