managing your time as a freelancer

Time is valuable, and if you are running your own business you have probably felt that there are not enough hours in the day to complete all your tasks. If you aren’t careful and don’t use any tools to help manage the day-to-day operations of your business, you can lose valuable time in generating new sales, managing projects, and developing relationships with current and prospective clients.  Here are some tools we use to help manage our time and gain the most value of each day:

Calendar – Google Calendar is a great way to share schedules between your employees (if you have any), your partners, and your clients.  Adding to a calendar might seem tedious, but when something comes up or changes, revise your shared calendar as soon as possible.  Creating and using calendars is a great way to manage time, schedules, plan for future events, and forecast projects.  Not a fan of Google Calendars?  Try 30 Boxes.

Organizing Contacts - We would always recommend looking into Salesforce first, but if you don’t have the capital to invest in online software, try Plaxo.  Plaxo allows you to import your contacts from your email account, access your contacts from any computer, manage your contacts, and more.  Very simple to use and the free version is all you need to successfully store and manage your contacts.

Managing Projects – Sometimes people forget that managing projects is actually 90% managing communication and relationships.  If you are in charge of a project, take the time to learn how your teammates and clients prefere to communicate.  But when the time comes to actually work the project day-to-day we recommend Merlin.

One of the most important things to remember is that project rarely go as they are planned.  Build in a little extra time and learn how to be efficient in flexibility.  With these tools, you’ll be able to better manage your time and ultimately complete a successful project.