When I took the plunge and left my full-time job to become a self-employed freelancer, I wish someone had saved me a lot of time by collating these all in one place. The volume of work when you take on the world alone can be daunting when it needs to be done single-handedly with no team and no in-house departments like HR or finance and set structures and systems to reply upon. Compound that with invoicing and follow-up cycle and taxation and refunds… the line between life and work quickly becomes pretty ‘fluid’. The less time spent faffing the better so you can get on with the good stuff! We are so lucky to have amazing filing, editing and planning tools at a click of a button. Now, as a full-time employee at a start-up I still use some of these ALL the time. Here’s my faves. I’ve split them in to the ones you’ll need most when ‘Working’, ‘Taking a break’, ‘Looking for work’ and ‘On Holiday’ to cover you, whatever your current activity status.
Raise your 2018 game with this hand-picked selection of services, resources and tools:
WORKING
By far the biggest catalogue of the 4! Looks like it is all work, work, work in my books but with these tools you’ll rather enjoy it.
Design tools:
Canva
Strap-line:
‘Empowering the world to design’
Description:
Really easy-to-use tool that pretty much does the design for you. Every template, image, font and format you need to market your business.
Beefree
Strapline:
‘Create beautiful emails fast’
Description:
Useful drag and drop email design tool with professional mobile responsive html templates to choose from.
Unsplash
Strapline:
‘Photos for everyone’
Description:
Lovely bank of free stock photographs. We credit many of our images to the talented photographers on this website.
Noun Project
Strapline:
‘Icons for everything’
Description:
Really diverse creative and slick icons. You can strangely get lost in these icons for hours if you’re anything like me!
Organising tools:
Trello
Strap-line:
‘Work together, get more done’
Description:
Create project boards and invite team members. Drag and drop ‘cards’ in to columns and monitor your progress visually and effectively.
Slack
Strap-line:
‘Where work happens’
Description:
This is an awesome hub for all communications within the team. Say goodbye to email and make messaging much more instant, social and transparent.
Social media tools:
Hootsuite
Strap-line:
‘Manage Social Media’
Description:
Monitor keywords, manage multiple social media accounts from Twitter to Facebook to Linkedin. Schedule messages, and measure your success.
Contently
Strapline:
‘Storytelling for the modern marketer’
Description:
Connecting enterprises with great marketing content and the freelancers creating it.
Finances:
Invoice2go
Strapline:
‘Don’t spend the weekend sending invoices’
Description:
A little gem for freelancers managing multiple invoices from different clients.
LOOKING FOR WORK
For when you need to hook yourself up with that next gig.
YunoJuno
Strapline:
‘Unlock the true potential of freelance’
Description:
Join their network and let your next contract find you. You’ll get the added benefit of being guaranteed paid on time through Yuno Juno too.
Proposify
Strapline:
‘A simpler way to deliver winning proposals to your clients’
Description:
Great for startups or when you need to tighten your proposition and get your business concept out the door.
Upwork
Strapline:
‘Get it done with a freelancer’
Description:
Get selected to work on a team by listing your skills on this site for developers, creatives, writers – you name it.
WordPress
Strapline:
‘Create a beautiful website or blog’
Description:
Could it be that you need a better online presence or portfolio? Get a domain and use WordPress to give yourself a professional edge.
TAKING TIME OUT
Wunderlust
Strapline:
‘Keep you life in synch’
Description:
You’re not working but boundaries are pretty fluid when you’re a freelancer. With this app you can hold your shopping lists, holiday plans, movies to watch and work projects all in one place.
ON HOLIDAY
Jacks Flight Club
Strapline:
‘We let you know when flights to amazing destinations go really reaaally cheap’
Description:
Keep this one a secret!! Jack’s on to a good thing scanning for cheap flights and delivering them to your inbox. Warning – your holidaying might get out of control!
I’ll keep adding to this list so if there are any goodies I’ve missed just tweet or message us and I will consider it for the collection. Thanks! Don’t forget to check out Dinghy Insurance. Whether you are on holiday, taking time out, looking for work or working, you will never pay more than what you need to with our super fast and flexible features.
Dinghy
Strapline:
‘Freelancer insurance just got better’
Description:
Fast, flexible and fair features you can turn up or down to save money at the touch of a button.
