7 essential items from my Freelance Toolbox
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 3 seconds
Any freelance can surely look through their daily work habits and pick out a few ‘must have’ items that they could not work without and today I am going to go through the items I use and hold as essential to my day to day business. Some freelance businesses might have less essential items than I do, while others may have more. However, I believe that there are 3-4 of these that will probably be essential items/programs/apps that every freelance can say they use on a daily basis for their business.
Adobe Photoshop CS4
This is #1 on my list because without it, I would be lost when designing websites and images for blog posts (like the one used in this post), advertisements, ect. I’ve been a user of photoshop since the original CS release in 2003. It’s been a program that I’ve familiarized myself with and can honestly say that without it, I wouldn’t know where to turn (GIMP and other open source alternatives are available, but after using a program for 6 years, you become accustomed to it’s interface and use).
Notepad++
In the past I have been very vocal about coding in the regular notpad program that comes with your computers. I believe that when you’re coding, you shouldn’t use any programs that pre-build codes for you or try to tell you what codes are needed next. With Notepad++ it gives me the ability to hand code all of my work but it also colors the coding so it’s easier to see what’s what and makes editing files much easier. There are other programs that could replace Notepad++ but again, I’ve been using it for so long now that it’s become an essential part of my day.
Gmail for Business
I have been a slave to email for a long time now and from all of the different options I’ve come across, Gmail seems to be the very best. With the task lists, labels and other various features it gives you, gmail is perfect for my productivity and keeping up with everything I have to do. The Gmail for Business was set up for businesses to utilize gmail with their business email addresses. So for instance, when someone emails me at my blog design company email address, I can check it with gmails interface. It’s a great item in my toolbox and one I LOVE!
Filezilla
I’ve used a lot of different FTP programs in the past few years but one that I feel really comfortable with is Filezilla. It’s got a great interface and is perfect for what I need. I’ve uploaded millions of files over the years and filezilla is the program that does the majority of that for me. It’s free and high quality – what more could you ask for?
Paypal
Payments are made to me through paypal on a daily basis. With everything from article writing for other blogs, to the blog designs I create for my freelance design business, paypal is the hub of all of those payments. I also use it to purchase items online and offline – online items such as domains from Namecheap and Hosting from Hostgator, and offline like clothes, food, ect (I have the papal debit card). There are a lot of people who don’t like paypal for payments, but I have yet to explore other options, so for now, it’s the only payment option I accept.
Invoice Machine
Not all of my clients require invoices from me but when they do, Invoice Machine is the program I use to send them their invoices. It’s got an awesome interface and gives you three free invoices per month – more than enough to make enough money to upgrade to the $12 per month plan which allows you to send 30 invoices. The invoices are clean and can feature your company logo as well as integrate with paypal and basecamp. It’s a must have for me.
Moleskine Notebook(s)
There are a lot of different apps online that allow you to track time, track to do items and mind map, but I found that there’s nothing better than a couple moleskine notebooks for those things. I’ve got a small moleskine notebook that I keep track of my start/stop time for every project and then a larger notebook that I keep for to do lists, drawings, article ideas and other various thoughts (even the occasional grocery list). They’re relatively low cost and can be looked back on forever. Plus, to me there is nothing like the feeling of paper and pencils/pens – it’s old school and it works.
Whats in your toolbox?
Now it’s time to turn the attention to all of you wonderful people – whats in your toolbox? Similar items to mine or do you handle things a bit differently? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section.
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Great post, and I agree with pretty much all of it! You can’t beat pen and pencil plus its nice to have something that you can use in your everyday work life that isn’t based on a computer… something you can take out and about or even just to another room to make some notes and relax a bit.
Software wise I love using Panic’s Coda, really nice, well priced and has some great autocomplete style coding features, things to help you find open and close brackets in scripts and a great in built FTP for working with files offline. Went through a few apps before I settled on this, can’t recommend it enough!
My only real addition to your list would be MAMP, easy to setup so I can have a local web server to build and develop on and as I have a folder for each project, I link these with the live site in Coda so I can edit my local version and update the changed files straight from the software. Means I hardly ever need Filezilla!
Never heard of PayPal debit before… have to see if its hit the UK yet!
I always love it when people share the services they use the most. I dont know where I would be without paypal, its such a great amazing service i think a lot of us take for granted.
Great post I agree with the Google Mail for business whole heartedly!
I operate on windows and the time tracking software I use is Klok (found at http://klok.mcgraphix.com/klok/index.htm) it’s made with Adobe Air so it’s multi platform. And my invoices are done with a template (in word) utilising the exported data from Klok.
Some other things that I couldn’t live without is post it notes, have you seen that scene from Bruce Almighty where the room is covered from top to bottom in post its? Well that’s me all over!
Hardware wise I couldn’t live with out my second monitor, a second monitor is a must in my opinion, it’s a place for reference, a place for panels in photoshop, comparisons, live coding it’s a brilliant time saver but most importantly it gives you that space.
Software wise I use Dreamweaver for coding which is a bit typical but I only use it for it’s editor and live view, I don’t utilise dreamweaver to it’s full potential but I learn something pretty handy in it everyday, can you believe I only just found the feature that beautifully orders your HTML in the tree… I was doing that manually!!!
Another great peice of software is bridge, especially for viewing psds and eps files without having to open photoshop/illustrator.
Extensis font suitcase is also a good piece of software for font organisation, i’ve tried many but that’s the best font organisation software I have come across so far.
Pens, pencils and notebooks are a must, I tend not to splash out on expensive notebooks, I go through them like nobodies business. But as for pens I stand firmly by stabilo particularly their coloured pens!
Thanks for the replies everyone. I am glad you all enjoyed the article.
@Craig – I need to get a second monitor (it’s on my xmas list). If you’re on a PC you can try notepad++ which (in my opinion) has a lot less bloat than dreamweaver.
http://paymo.biz/ for time control
I love that you use Moleskin notebooks. I use – believe it or not – steno pads!
I have them going back more than 10 years now and they are the perfect place to store notes. I’ve gone through 4 or 5 computers in that time and have tons of data stored electronically but I’m always glad I have some things on paper.
Thanks!
I love Moleskines, but sometimes they are just too expensive (especially when I’m between projects) and I’ve found something pretty close. They’re called Xonex Ru journals and they are pretty cool. I love that they don’t have page lines too which helps for random sketches. I know a wholesaler so let me know if you want his info.
For me Vim is the best editor you can find … but I’m a Linux user
Nice list, I use many of those as well.
I definitely approve of Klok though, I’ve used it for a long time now. The UI is incredibly friendly, and it only took me a few minutes to figure everything out. I wrote a review on Klok from a self employed game developers perspective, give it a read if you get the time. Glad to see the developers getting the attention they deserve, they’ve worked hard on giving us a great, free program.
Loved reading this! I’ve just newly entered the freelancing game so it was very useful to have!
Just ordered my first moleskine