Top 10 apps for freelancers who work on Mac
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Freelancing and running your own business might be fun, but it sure ain’t easy. What comes as given to office-dwellers, eats up a good deal of your precious time since you have to be your own accountant and manager. Fortunately, good people of this world made amazing software to help you on the way. And, you can have all these apps in Setapp collection for a single monthly fee.
Timing: Automatic work tracker
If you have an hourly work rate and the time you spend on tasks is vital, this is your new favorite app. Timing is an automatic task tracker: it records how long you spend on each client or project for reports and invoices. And the best part is that you don’t have to do it manually because Timing tracks everything on its own.
Chronicle: Bill organizer
As someone who does their own taxes and manages their own bills, you’ve probably just winced reading this sentence. Well, wince no more, Chronicle’s here to the rescue. It’s a personal finance manager that keeps record of your bills and expenses, stores payments and fees, and makes sure money matters are not slowing down your buzz-iness.
Workspaces: Instant project launcher
If your usual routine includes juggling a dozen of projects at once, try Workspaces. It’s an app with special “pockets” for projects. Simply drag all documents, plans, invoices, images, videos, links, and whatnot to a separate project pocket and you’ll have instant access to them whenever you need.
Paste: Smart clipboard with memory
This is a clipboard you’ve always dreamed of (if you happen to dream of clipboards). Paste has memory: it remembers things you copied 100 copies ago, even 500 copies ago. It remembers links, and images, and you can search through all of its memory and find anything super-fast, which almost feels like time travel.
Ulysses: Professional writing app
Ulysses gives you that feeling of a fresh piece of paper. That is, if paper was stacked with markdown editors, direct medium uploads, rich editing, nice typography, and ebook creation. It’s a sleek, convenient place for writing and blogging, with iCloud sync and all the tools at hand.
CameraBag Pro: Advanced photo editor
For those of you working with imagery of any kind, CameraBag Pro can be of so much use. It’s a professional photo editor with graphic elements and ready templates. Unlike your typical editing tools, it takes about half an hour to figure it out (including time spent on built-in tours) and start making beauty.
HazeOver: Screen dimming software
HazeOver is one of those apps you wouldn’t envision yourself because it’s just so obviously simple and, nevertheless, brilliant. HazeOver highlights the window you’re working in and dims the rest of the screen. A simple trick that does miracles to your abilities to focus on task and ignore distractions.
Spotless: Desktop organizer
Some say creative people are messy by default. Creative people say nothing, they're too busy trying to find the last edition of that final project presentation due yesterday on their trash pile of a Desktop. Spotless will clean up your desktop for you in a second, neatly stashing files by type, name, creation date, or other convenient identifiers.
Be Focused: Productivity timer
Be Focused is a timer that knows you’re good at procrastination. It also knows you have work to do and goals to meet, so it tricks you into working and meeting those goals. Be Focused schedules daily tasks and helps you keep your work/rest balance by setting specific work intervals.
Timemator: Project timer for billing
Timemator is a lifesaver if you are working freelance and need to track and report your billable hours to clients. Set up your projects in the app, add your hourly rate, and enjoy the exportable reports when you need them! Color code your projects for smooth visualization.
UctoX: Invoice generator
UctoX is a handy app for creating invoices and customizing their look. The app helps you track sent and received invoices, bank statements, investments, and more. Document all the minutiae details about your transaction in UctoX invoice templates, including type of shipping, currency, presence of advance bills, date of taxable supply, automatically calculated discounts, etc. Your account is password protected, and you can set up iCloud sync with your other devices.
PhotoBulk: Batch watermark creator for images
If your craft lies with imagery, you're probably hard at work protecting your copyright. And, when you return a series to the customer or publish it, you need to place a watermark on each of those 200 images. That's a lot of work, unless you have PhotoBulk. This small app allows for quick edits and watermarking by the batch.
Focused Work: Focused work timer
Another tool for productive timed focus sessions is Focused Work. This handy app has an assortment of session types — from ones inspired by the Pomodoro technique to more flexible or more structured focus sessions — that you can use to get more productive. Add apps and websites to block for the duration of each session, set session reminders, and jot down ideas or thoughts in the Scratch Pad with Focused Work.
As we mentioned before, every app on this list is available in Setapp collection. Setapp gives you great software by subscription, with more than 240 apps for a single monthly fee. There’s also a 7-day free trial, so sign up!
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