When growing your business of writing, management tools are critical to handle different projects. They keep you on track and organized. When employed by someone else or a company there are other departments that look after various aspects of content writing. A home-based writer needs to put on multiple hats. You need to be a project manager, marketing manager and also the writer! As the business grows you will need accountants, deal with multiple clients and other resources to manage relationships . Even if you are left with no other choice but your own device, the following management tools are beneficial. With technology, it is possible for writers to be less pressurized to meet deadlines. Around the world there are more than 30 management tools. Maybe you can choose a couple of them for your writing business.
The probable things that will help to be organized are:
- Keeping all research & notes in one location
- App or project management software for writers
- Software to centralize all contributions via other writer teams
- Keep track of time while at work-important to maintain deadlines
- Managing workload
- Staying in contact with clients, team, developers and designers
- Getting new projects
- Finding workspace to write peacefully
The current useful tools are :
Toggl
If you work per hour, this is extremely useful. It contains a chrome plugin. You can create projects and break it into smaller tasks. You will know how much is used for each task daily. This work report can be sent to the client. It helps them to know how much time you have spent on the project.
Timely
This is another useful app with many widgets. It has the ability to track all the data at work. The other apps that come in this category are Tesla, Trello and Asana.
Rescue Time
This is one of the oldest time management tools. It helps in even tracking time spent on emails, client meetings and discussion on the project. It will log all the time spent.
What is unique about this is that it will not let you get distracted by spending too much time on any website that is not related to the project!
A printed report can be generated once the work is over.
Tomato time
If you have a deadline use this tool. Time yourself up to 25 minutes to complete a task to be sent on time to the client. It has an alarm to ensure that the work gets done in business hours.
Focus Booster
This is yet another tool with well designed features for a professional writer. It is useful for home based writers who have distractions as they do not work in a typical office. It has a user friendly interface and all tasks can be done easily with its help. All the work sessions can be shared if required with the clients or employers. It has an analytical dashboard for review of the work done.
Asana
If you have large projects, then this is an apt choice. It allows you to share documents and do discussions till the project is complete. You can set deadlines, and the same notifications even come on the email and phone as reminders.
When you are doing a multi-page website or research work or editing a large tome it is useful. It takes care of emails being deleted, or communications being lost or missing out on errors and important corrections.
Trello
This is yet another powerful tool to manage multiple writing assignments. It can set up the time table for the next week, month or even six months. It has different color codes for different clients and the tasks involved. Even research work associated with each client can be managed with it. It lets you even prepare pitches for regular clients and check if future articles and features can be shared with clients.
If the interface is confusing, then you can use another software called Meister Task. It is a simpler version of Trello. You can make visual plans of all the projects.
Airtable & Droptask
Airtable is a spreadsheet that can help you to put the stories, blog articles being written. Droptask offers colorful options to do the tasks. It will help to connect on social media. You can deal with writers and clients on other media too. Since, it is visually attractive, it is a popular software that many global independent writers use.
The other management tools include, CoSchedule, Balancing your budget, Waveapps, and Quickbooks self-employed which are good for invoicing and billing. Freshbooks is a cloud based app to track writing and money matters. FreeAgent has an estimate plan on its dashboard to help writers.
Is there an app to stay connected with regular clients? Yep, it is called staying in Contact. It works when you have clients from different time zones. You can also use Contactually and Messenger to keep in touch with useful professionals.
You can also use Skype and Whatsapp (at your own risk!). Life and Wechat also come in the same category! The most important app is Landing freelance writing jobs– as you need to stay in business. Use LinnkedIn, Problogger, Copify.com, Upwork.com and even peopleperhour.com.
By the time you are reading this more tools and job websites would have been created. Keep your eyes glued on the new sites via search engines.