The Best Project Management Tools for Freelancers

If you’re part of the freelance world, you know that it takes more than just talent and technical skills to be successful. You also need to effectively manage your workload, time, clients, and projects—and things get even more complex as your business grows.

Luckily, there are many project management tools to help freelance voice actors stay organized and deliver their work on time. Different options offer various features, so be sure to carefully consider each one before deciding which tool will work best for your business.

In this article

1. How Do Freelancers Keep Track of Clients and Projects?
2. How Do Freelancers Organize Their Work?
3. Top 3 Project Management Tools for Freelancers
4. Teamwork
5. Trello
6. Kissflow Project
7. Final Thoughts of Project Management Tools for Freelancers

This piece covers:

How freelancers keep track of their clients and projects

How freelancers organize their work

The top 3 project management tools for freelance voice actors

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your jam-packed calendar or an endless list of tight deadlines, keep reading to learn how to take back control of your schedule! 

How Do Freelancers Keep Track of Clients and Projects?

There are many ways for freelance voice talent to keep track of their clients and projects. When deciding how to track your own work, consider what works best for your personal work habits and unique freelance business.

Here are a few popular ways to track your clients and projects:

• Use a calendar (hard copy or digital) to note deadlines and tasks you should complete each day
• Use Outlook or Google Contacts to maintain records of your clients and book of business
• Use an online CRM (like this free version of HubSpot) to track client information, contacts, and other information
• Use a hard copy or digital planner to track clients, projects, deadlines, and daily tasks
• Use an online project management tool to digitally track your projects and clients

If you dislike having large amounts of paper records, choose a digital tool. If you need to see things on paper in front of you, keep your records in a physical planner or hard copy calendar. If you feel overwhelmed by traditional options, choose an online project management tool to keep track of everything for you. 

Because voice actors are interacting with so many clients on various kinds of projects—all with different time frames—online project management tools are often the best option for freelance voice actors. We’ve included a few of our favorite options at the end of this article.

How Do Freelancers Organize Their Work?

Aside from tracking clients and projects, freelancers also need to organize their completed and in-progress work. It’s essential to locate projects quickly so that you don’t waste time finding files and can easily reference older files when you need them.

Here are some suggestions to stay organized:

• Choose an online storage solution and stick to it. Options include Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, or Dropbox.
• Select a naming convention to keep your files consistent and easy to find (Example: Client Name_File Name_Date)
• Organize your work into files by client, topic, and date
• Save drafts with version numbers to avoid mixing them up with final copies
• Delete old or duplicate files that you no longer need to de-clutter your work files

Consistency is key to organizing your work. Choose where you will store your files, how you will name them, and how you’ll arrange them, and stick with it. As your portfolio grows, you’ll be left with a well-organized digital library of your work.

Top 3 Project Management Tools for Freelancers

We evaluated many popular tools to select the three best options for freelance voice talent. These tools can help you track clients, plan for your projects, and organize your work.

Teamwork

Teamwork provides everything you need to track your clients and projects for an affordable price. It allows you to connect to many file storage platforms, such as Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive.

Teamwork is great for freelancers because it is easy to use and streamlines client communication. You can share project timelines and progress with your clients directly and keep all billing and invoice communications within the same platform.

Paid plans are priced by the number of individuals using the app. While Teamwork does offer a free version, most freelancers will need to choose one of their paid plans. The paid plans give you access to the client communication tools and the ability to track more than one project at a time.

Trello

Trello is a superb project management tool for individuals or small groups of freelancers. It allows you to track your projects using different “cards” on “boards.” You can organize these boards by client or project and fill them with your upcoming tasks.

Trello provides task automation to automatically create subtasks, assign team members, and much more based on the activities you track. This can save you time and help you ensure that you do not forget tasks. For example, Trello can automatically assign you a new task to remind you to follow up with the client once you mark a project complete.

Trello does not offer many reporting capabilities or a strong client management system to track your book of business details. If you usually work alone and already track your client information elsewhere, Trello might be the best option for you.

Kissflow Project

Kissflow Project is an excellent tool for managing projects, timelines, and running reports to learn more about your own productivity. We love that it connects to Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive so you can easily link your project timelines and tasks to the corresponding files in your storage.

Kissflow can help freelancers juggle many projects and deadlines by allowing you to view your upcoming tasks and deadlines in various formats. You can also easily create subtasks and add task notes to stay organized and complete your work on time.

Kissflow works well for freelancers who work alone or for those who work in teams. If you work in a group of freelancers, Kissflow allows you to assign roles to each team member and add task watchers to keep everyone in the loop.

Final Thoughts of Project Management Tools for Freelancers

There are many ways for freelance voice actors to track their clients and projects and organize their work, so you’ll need to do some research to determine which is the best fit for you. Online project management tools can help you stay organized and take control of your calendar for good. We recommend Teamwork, Trello, and Kissflow as three potential tools to get you started.The Voices platform offers project management capabilities, too! Sign up for an account today to see how we help voice actors manage their projects and clients through the platform.