Freelancing is hard work so you need all the help you can get to make your business run as smoothly as possible. Luckily enough, there are plenty of tools online to help you run your business. Best of all, a lot of them are free.
Social media management
Social media marketing is important for any business, particularly if you operate online. It’s good to have a presence which you can use to promote yourself, engage with people in your industry and build your reputation as a professional.
However, social media marketing can end up taking a lot of time, this means that you need a tool that will help you manage it a bit better. Having a social media management platform is particularly useful for people with several profiles they want to keep working on. It means that you can schedule posts in advance so you can work on social in chunks rather than constantly having to be online updating throughout the day.
If you want a free one, then try Hootsuite. It functions well enough and you can add up to three profiles on the free version which should be more than enough if you’re only promoting one thing.
To-do lists
Having a to-do list is important to keep yourself on track. Get into the habit of creating to-do lists with a handy website like Todoist.
The mobile app lets you quickly swipe tasks away once you’ve completed them wherever you are. You can create different to-do lists for personal errands, work or different projects.
Organising ideas
Trello boards are handy for keeping notes or ideas. Some people use it to put blog post ideas down or to split a project into smaller tasks. If you work with someone else you can also share your Trello board with a team of people.
Keeping up to date with news
It’s important that you keep up to date with the latest news in your industry. Reading the news is also a good place to get ideas for content if you’ve got a blog you need to consistently write for.
Feedly is a good way to keep up to date with your favourite news websites and blogs in one place. You can follow sites and get a list of their latest articles in your feed without having to go to each website individually.
Time management
Organising your time and keeping on track is difficult if it’s just you working. You don’t have any boss or colleagues to answer to so you can easily slip into filling your day with procrastination.
To get rid of distractions you might want to use a browser extension which will temporarily block distracting sites from you. StayFocusd limits the amount of time you can spend on these sites and blocks them when the time is used up.
Have you used any of these tools or have any others you’d recommend? Let us know in the comments!
