Popular Productivity Apps For Freelance Designers
Designers spend a significant amount of time trying to stay organized, juggling meetings and project deadlines, etc. which leaves them very little time for real design work
Fortunately, there are plenty of productivity apps that help designers stay focused. From project management tools and collaboration software to schedulers, these tools will keep you organized and your work life under control. Let’s take a look.
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Monday.com
monday.com can be used by a project team of any size, whether it’s a pair of freelancers needing to collaborate on a single project or hundreds or thousands of individuals being involved in the outcome of multiple projects.
This team management tool is also suitable for use in any industry sector. Initially marketed mainly to tech companies and startups, its capabilities were quickly discovered by non-tech entities. monday.com, originally marketed under the dapulse brand name, is used by 22,000+ teams representing roughly 200 verticals, 70% of which fall outside the tech sector.
There are multiple reasons why these users have taken to Monday.com, one of which is its “cheetah fast” speed (a recent upgrade from “cat-quick”).
Even more important perhaps, is monday.com’s customizability. This project management tool can easily be customized to manage your workflow. You won’t have to change your design process to match the tool.
The color visuals are another reason. Team members can easily see what’s happening, what has happened, and the present status of specific tasks or of the entire project.
Taiga
Project managers strive not only to keep their projects under control but to keep them under full control. And, that’s precisely what Taiga enables them to do. This project management platform (created to meet the needs of Scrum and Agile designers and developers) is Open Source, it’s simple and intuitive to use, and it’s free for up to three members.
Every project has its own peculiarities, a factor that not every project management tool or platform can deal with. Since Taiga is customizable, it can easily be attuned to fit each project’s personality. You can apply the tool’s Kanban methodology to divide a project into whichever stages you prefer.
Mason
Mason is a productivity tool with something of a twist. It combines the elements of web building and collaboration in a way that allows teams to collaborate on actual software elements, rather than being constrained to working with mockups or prototypes. The ability of teams to work on individual web and mobile software elements can markedly increase team productivity.
Mason is a radical approach to web design in that it assembles digital products by breaking them down into “atomic” patterns, and then reassembling them using a building block approach. Although this tool can be applied anywhere in the design phase, it is especially helpful in the latter phases when specific elements of the design need to be changed or refined.
Designing and testing are free. You will only be charged a fee for using Mason when your web customers view the final products.
ActiveCollab
Increased productivity can often be achieved by keeping organized project information in one place for everyone to see. With ActiveCollab, you can avoid most of the problems associated with telephone or email communications. You will avoid situations where team players are unintentionally kept out of the loop, and ideas, comments, and feedback are lost in the shuffle.
ActiveCollab keeps information centralized and enables you to achieve meaningful collaboration across the entire team.
ClickTime
Project managers usually need to know more than the present status of a project. To meet their responsibilities, they need to know who is doing what, who is available for work if needed, the hours remaining on a task, and more.
ClickTime not only provides this information but presents it in concise, easy-to-understand graphic displays. ClickTime helps PMs manage costs and expenses, and employee time off as well.
Nutcache
This productivity tool is designed with the project managers’ and creative teams’ needs in mind. Nutcache will be especially helpful for creative teams, making the working process a breeze.
Moreover, this business-oriented productivity app will manage any Agile project type from start to finish. This includes the initial estimate, project budgeting, time tracking, expense management and final billing.
Futuramo Visual Tickets
Designers will benefit from using Futuramo Visual Tickets, a web app that helps teams exchange tickets with bugs, change requests, and feedback in the most visual way possible through annotated screens.
Moreover, teams can share files and exchange comments, prioritize work on tickets, change status, filter key information, and more. Try it for free.
RunYourMeeting
(Update: RunYourMeeting has since retired.)
Productivity gains resulting from doing things more efficiently are sometimes undercut by wasting time. Meetings are often guilty of this, even under the best of circumstances. When one or more of the participants comes unprepared, the time wasted or lostcan involve every attendee.
RunYourMeeting will help you get done what you want to get done. This productivity tool helps you plan, conduct, and follow up on meetings and action items, and share vital information.
Conclusion
There are many ways technology is being applied to make work easier. These productivity apps are no different. It can be anything – collaboration, project management, or design aids. Once tasks are easier to do, productivity increases.
You shouldn’t have any problem locating a tool that will fit you. Each of the tools presented can make the majority of your project tasks easier to accomplish.