10 Freelancer Tools That Will Revolutionize How You Work From Home

In this such crisis, working from home may be more than a trend. It’s expected to roll back and even be a new normal in the wake or continuation of the pandemic.

Well, even before the pandemic forced millions of employees worldwide to work from home (WFH), most freelancers were already familiar with remote working.

Of course, it takes more effort to stay productive and get the work done amid all the distractions at home.

Even freelancers find it challenging when the couch is too comfortable and social media are too interesting to ignore– let alone the workaholics who are just adapting to the remote working environment.

That’s why we have some essential freelancer tools to help you work from home with the same and hopefully better productivity levels as at the office. 

If you’re a freelancer or remote worker, especially expertise in writing, you’ve come to the right place.

Without further ado, let’s get working!

#1. Google Drive

Working from home means you don’t usually have access to your company’s storage. However, you still need to share and tag as well as sending large files to your teammates or clients.

In that matter, Google Drive is cloud-based storage you can use anywhere, anywhen from any device. This tool provides you with shareable and collaborative docs, excel, and PowerPoint, and more.

With the collaborative feature, you can work together with your team or get direct feedback from your client in real-time.

#2. Zoom

Working remotely also means no in-person meetings to talk about the projects you’re working on. Zoom offers you a solution for it.

This video conferencing tool helps you to do a virtual meet one-on-one with your clients. You can use Zoom with your coworkers or fellow freelancers to discuss projects more personally.

If you’re looking for a video conferencing tool that provides a bunch of communication and collaboration features with a simple interface, Zoom is worth considering.

The key features include screen sharing, real-time chat, video recording, join a meeting, calendar integrations, and even customizable virtual background.

#3. Trello

Trello is a project management tool that can help you organize your tasks and projects. 

With this tool, you can effortlessly manage daily, weekly, even monthly to-do’s, keep track of the projects, and collaborate with your team.

You can see who’s working on what so you and your team’s members have a solid grasp on every progress of projects.

Not to mention that a simple drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to manage and prioritize your projects.

#4. Toggl

Since there’s no peer pressure and no rigid working hours, we all know it’s hard to stay focused while working from home– for both professional freelancers or remote work newbies.

Don’t fret. Toggle can help you with that.

Toggl is a tool you can use to track exactly how many hours you’ve spent for a project via detailed reports. 

On the reports, there are also websites and apps you’ve used to complete the projects. It’s a handy tool, especially if you’re a freelancer that bills clients based on time worked.

#5. LastPass

LastPass may be the tool you need for managing several accounts with different passwords. 

It’s more than a password manager, though, this tool can also provide secure storage for your credit cards, WiFi passwords, even your digital notes. Even when you’re working from home, you also need to pay close attention to WFH security.

With this tool, you can do stuff like password sharing, emergency access, one-touch logins, automatic data syncing, and more. 

Instead of remembering your passwords and having repetitive logins, LastPass offers you a simple way to access all of your accounts safely with just one click.

#6. Hemingway App

If you’re a freelance writer, punctuation and grammatical errors must be your biggest enemies, aren’t they? Therefore, you need to use a grammar checker tool to improve your writing readability and conciseness.

Hemingway App is one of the popular tools when it comes to catching spelling errors and basic grammar issues. 

This extremely affordable tool will alert you when you make grammar, punctuation, or even spelling errors, along with the suggestions. 

#7. Microsoft To Do

Microsoft To Do (formerly known as Wunderlist) is a tool you can rely on to share to-do-lists, set reminders, and add notes. 

This tool will help you to get organized and track the things you need to accomplish in a day/week/month. So, even with a too-comfortable working environment, you’ll never forget to get your tasks done.

One of the best Wunderlist’s abilities is that you can make your private tasks and shareable tasks in just one platform.

#8. FreshBooks

Clients are the backbone of freelancers’ business. And while you have to manage all of the client-thingy while you’re working from home, FreshBooks can help you out.

With this tool, you can seamlessly manage clients and projects, send automated invoices, track expenses, and provide online payment options (ACH and Credit Card).

FreshBooks offers a Self-Employed edition for users who work solo. It also has as a Teams edition for small businesses with small teams.

#9. ConvertKit

Building a relationship with your clients and audience can be done by email marketing. Even in this crisis, you can still find gigs and engage your repeated clients pretty easily with email marketing strategy.

And one of the most recommended email marketing tools for you is ConvertKit.

This tool can help you to promote your latest posts, to build relationships with readers, and to promote your business to your potential clients effortlessly.

After all, ConvertKit is an automation tool, so it can also help you send well-timed, targeted content to your clients and audiences automatically.

#10. Wix

Since we spend more time at home, why don’t you see it as an opportunity to improve your business’s professionalism? For example, creating a website.

From writers to marketers to designers, any jobs from various industries need a website to showcase their work or products. 

If you haven’t got one already, you can rely on Wix as your website solution. With this tool, you can create your own website in no time.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to be a professional website developer to use this tool because Wix has many customizable, pre-built templates. You can easily repurpose it to your own liking.

Wrapping Up

Most employees out there are in this “work from home” thing for such a long haul. It’s not just for freelancers anymore. 

However, whether you’re a freelancer or a remote work newbie, those tools above can boost your productivity as well as improve your business performance. 

One thing to bear in mind, it never hurts to pay attention to your needs and budgets before using any tools so you can get the maximum results without burning a hole in your pocket.


Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order). 

 

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