Contests and Promotions from ResearchWritingCenter.com, Freelance Writing: Simple Tips on Complicated TopicsTime Management Tips for Freelance Writers by Ankit B. (Contest Finalist Submission)

Writing Contest from RWCSo you are a freelance writer? When I tell someone that I am a freelance writer most of them react as if I am an unemployed chap! Not many people are ready to accept that freelance writing can be a full-time job.

One thing that I can guarantee all those people is that – us, freelance writers, are one of the very few people who do what they love – ‘WE WRITE’!

For a freelance writer to be able to manage his time is as important as for a driver to be able see the approaching traffic.

A freelance writer has just so many things on his mind from deadlines and research to new projects and so much more that good management skills are a big incentive.

Management of time is not just important to keep things organized and less messy but it also helps increase productivity and number of projects a freelancer may handle.

Part-time freelance writers (college students, house-wives, others) may even feel an increased need to manage their time effectively to cope up with their studies, household responsibilities etc.

I have tried a barrage of time management and project management applications to applications claiming to do either or both of these and turning out to be totally useless. I don’t even mind paying a few extra bucks if the product has something new and good to offer, after all one of the first lessons of business management is: “You have to spend some money to be able to earn a lot more”.

A word of caution though – you may also not want to buy too many premium tools because at this point there are a lot of applications that serve almost all of your necessary requirements for no costs at all and anything above that is well….a luxury! Here are the tools I have found to be really helpful:

Google Calendar: This is one of the very first tool I started using to effectively manage my time and I have been in love with it ever since. You just won’t get over its simplicity and it’s easy to use features. The services of a Google Calendar are available for free when you sign up for a Google Account (which, by the way is also free).

You can track everything you need to in a single place and also allow clients to share in your set schedule. I am just a fan of it’s multiple calendars –you can add one for freelance work, one for work/college, one for personal appointments etc.

You can easily set reminders and customize them, and you can even have alerts sent to your desktop, email or to your phone by way of SMS, which is especially useful for someone like me who is always on the go. Google Calendar is one of the best tools out there, however after sometime you may realize that it is not a good option if you want to make a to-do list on a daily basis.

PlainList: This is essentially a to-do list management tool; you can create lists and put all your pending projects in one place. This tool allows you to organize them all in one very simple and straightforward interface.

Another helpful feature that PlainLists offers is “cloud” access, which means that you can login to PlainLists from any device that maybe connected to the internet and access all your lists. But PlainLists in nothing more than this and you may sometimes need to use other tools along it for it to be fully effective, but since PlainLists is not solely a freelance targeted tool so it cannot be exactly regarded as a pitfall.

Todoist: It is one of the more popular and useful tools available online and guess what? It’s free! Todoist comes with many flexible options which are equally easy to use. It is very easy to create an event and to set deadlines to it.

It then shows the works that may be approaching their deadline or may be overdue. It is an online based tool, so the good news is that it is very easy to access and any device or location is not a problem, plus it can also directly be integrated into your Gmail Account. All in all Todoist list provides all those things you wish you could find in PlainLists.

Evernote – It is a complete personal manager. It lets users capture interesting websites, store PDFs, and take notes. Evernote basically allows its users to capture everything (thoughts, documents, websites, pictures, and audio files), organize them, and later helps them find it when needed. Also the basic version of Evernote is free. It is one of those tools that look insanely helpful but I am still to use it on a regular basis.

About the author:
Ankit B. – full time B.E. student at College of Engineering And Technology. Writing is one of my traits that I can be proud of. I write on almost every topic, taking my writing skills to all dimensions. I am a short tempered guy who just loves to win every argument.

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