Working from a home office can be like being a TSA agent — keeping track of everything when you need it most while everyone counts on you! The information necessary to keep your freelance business running smoothly can get lost in the shuffle between booking appointments, filing your business taxes, creating invoices, and more.

If you are hoping to be a successful freelancer, you will need good tools for your business.

The selection of available software can be overwhelming though, especially since there are already so many responsibilities to worry about.

Therefore it makes sense to use the best free software that you can find. This blog post will cover the top 5 best free softwares that I would recommend all freelancers have on their computers.

Time Management

Rescue Time

RescueTime is a software program that tracks how you spend your time on your computer and helps you to identify how you can be more productive in the future. It tells you exactly what you do (and what you don’t do).

It’s a personal tool that provides insight into how you use your time on your computer, the web, and your mobile devices.

RescueTime monitors the work you do on your computer and mobile devices, logging the amount of time you spend using each app, what files you open, and which websites you visit.

You can set it to run automatically during certain times of the day or put it into paused mode to stop monitoring.

RescueTime tracks computer time spent on various projects, classifying time as productive or distracting, with the free version, you can get a good idea of how much time you spend online and on certain websites, but the Premium version provides a more detailed analysis

Productivity

TextExpander

While making your living as a freelancer, you probably send many emails every day. Wouldn’t it be great if a software could save you time and hassle by reducing the amount you have to write?

That’s where TextExpander comes in. TextExpander enables users to type just a few characters, automatically expanding those characters into complete sentences.

Here’s how it works: Type a few characters—a word or two, a sentence—and TextExpander will convert it into lengthy text. 

The more you use TextExpander, the more you save time—the more work you can get done with your time.

When I write, I often have to type the same phrases repeatedly. With TextExpander, I can save time and effort by automatically entering my frequently typed passages, correcting my typos and spelling mistakes, entering tricky characters and even creating templates for my frequent documents.

Now Do This

Now Do This is a simple way to keep track of your tasks. It’s a simple task management tool that allows you to create lists of tasks and mark them as complete when you’ve completed the job/task.

The greatest of this app is that there is little room for distraction. You can simply post your things to do and then go about doing them.

And because of the way it’s built, your task list can last up to 2 years! Even though that’s too much for most people, it will be an excellent tool for those working on a really long project.

Finance

Mint

Mint is an app/tool that lets you track your budget and financial goals, helping you balance your bank account, and keep an eye on your economic and financial well-being for free.

Mint allows you to keep tabs on all of your financial accounts in one place.

It lets you sync up your bank accounts and other financial accounts, track your finances and bills, and set up reminders, so you don’t miss a payment.

It helps users track how their money is spent by connecting to their financial accounts and categorizing transactions into different budget categories.

You can use their default categories that are provided or create custom categories as needed.

The Mint budgeting app can help you use your money wisely. It’s easy to set up and offers several useful features, including recommended budgets for most expenses and adjustment of goals or setting up new ones.

Writing Tools

OpenOffice

If you freelance, you might want to consider using this suite of office tools for your personal computer. Instead of paying for Microsoft Office, why not try the excellent and free Ms Office alternative?

Apache OpenOffice is a free, open-source collection of productivity software that users can install on their computers.

It includes programs like Apache OpenOffice Writer, which offers customizable templates that you can use to format letters, agendas, meeting minutes, and faxes; Apache OpenOffice Calc, a spreadsheet program; Apache OpenOffice Impress, a presentation program; and other components.

If all you need is to create an e-book or multipage document, you should definitely look at OpenOffice Writer. It’s a complete word processor that comes with a similar selection of fonts and other tools (charts, formatting) as Microsoft Office has.

It allows you to easily export to PDF, letting you reap the benefits of e-books, guides, and other documents formatted for easy sharing as PDF files.

Bonus:

Social Tool

HootSuite

You can plan posts across several social media networks and track customer communication with Hootsuite.

It makes it easy to schedule posts on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc., track your conversations with customers, and so much more.

You can use this software to gain real-time insights into how people are interacting with your social media content so that you can make worthwhile decisions for your business.

Hootsuite’s ‘Best Time to Publish’ view can help you increase engagement, drive traffic, and boost awareness by helping you schedule your posts at the optimal times.

HootSuite is the most widely trusted social media management solution on the market, offering expert certifications, training, and coaching to drive social marketing, social listening, and customer care success.

Maintaining a good social presence is a powerful tool for organizations—and even for individuals. Used effectively, it can build connections with customers, drive business results and bring people together.

So if you are a freelancer and looking for some excellent software to use, the above 6 best free softwares for freelancers can do wonders for you. These softwares will help you in expanding your scope of a freelance career.