In addition to blogging at Indie Fixx I am also a freelance writer. And being a freelancer means that I have a really big need to stay organized and do not have a huge budget to waste on productivity suites and the like. That’s not a problem for me though. There are are so many great free and low-cost tools that I can use to be just as productive and professional as some big corporate mega-firm.
These tools are probably just what you need to help prioritize, organize and productify your life and work.
Evernote is a note taking tool. You can sync it on your desktop, in a web browser and on your phone and tablet. I use it to to take notes at meetings, clip webpages for later and easier reading. I can take notes on my iPad and reference them later on my laptop and that’s awesome.
Toggl is time-tracking software. Users can utilize it for free or upgrade for $5 per month for the pro version. It’s how I keep track of my freelance hours.
Penultimate is an iPad app used for writing and sketching. It’s useful for taking notes with diagrams and if you’d rather write than type. I use a stylus because I like the feel of taking notes the old-fashioned way without the literal pen and paper. I can sync my Penultimate account with Evernote, so all my Penultimate notes are also accessible via Evernote.
Google Drive is a free service that lets you create documents, store them and access them anywhere. There are PC and Mac versions as well as for phones and tablets. Free up to 5 GB of space. I use it instead of having to worry about having to purchase word processing software.