Design professionals are often seen as superhumans due to the amount of work they have to handle. From tackling complex tasks to beating deadlines and collaborating with others, there’s always a lot on a designer’s table.
If you’re a freelance design professional, you also have to juggle different roles and tasks to run a successful business.
That’s why you may need a little bit of help to keep you focused and productive.
As it turns out, there are different tools that can help you achieve that goal of boosting your efficiency and avoiding burnout. We’ll show 7 of them.
Figma
Figma is a popular UI/UX design tool that designers rely on for team collaboration, especially in remote workspaces.
The tool supports Linux, Windows, and macOS. It allows you and your colleagues to view, edit, and sync files in real-time. This way, you can see how each team member edits a file and track the changes.
If you’re an independent designer, Figma also has many helpful features for you. Its prototyping modules will help you put out great work and your designs are saved on the go so you don’t have to worry about losing work progress.
The tool also allows you to:
- Make designs that can integrate with other projects.
- Use its modern pen tool to draw instant arc designs.
- Use plugins to automate repetitive tasks
- Comment on designs.
Figma’s Pricing
The tool’s free version only allows you to use limited features. For example, you can only view your work’s version history back to 30 days and you’re only allowed to collaborate on three projects with one other team member.
But you can get more features for $15 per editor per month. The plan allows you to collaborate on unlimited projects, use private projects, and create custom files.
Spark
Responding to emails is one of the most wasteful activities in your work day. A McKinsey study found that 28% of each professional’s work week goes to replying to emails.
You can significantly boost your productivity if you cut down on how much time you spend in your inbox.
Since you still have to share critical correspondence with clients and handle their emails, your hands may seem tied. That said, a tool like Spark will make your life easier.
You can use the app to create an email priority list, using your most important emails. This way, you won’t have to deal with irrelevant messages in your inbox.
The tool’s Smart Inbox feature also helps you segment notifications, newsletters, and personal emails. You can configure it to only notify you about critical emails.
Spark’s Pricing
Your team can use 2 shared drafts collaborators, 5 GB of email storage, and up to 5 email templates with Spark’s free plan.
To get access to 10 GB of storage for each team, unlimited email templates, and other advanced features, you have to go for the premium version. It costs $7.99 per user per month. However, you’ll get it for $6.39 if you pay for the annual package.
Traqq
Time management is one of the crucial skills designers must have if they’re going to boost productivity and meet deadlines.
That’s why a tool like Traqq time tracker is important.
The tool can keep you focused and accountable as an employee, since you know your work time is being monitored.
If you’re a freelancer, Traqq will save you from the chore of admin work. The tool helps you calculate billable hours and can automatically create your invoice at the end of the week or month.
For both employees and independent designers, Traqq can be a great productivity asset. That’s because it monitors how much time you spend on specific tasks. This way, you’re able to know where to improve.
It also helps you find time-wasters since it records how much time you spend on websites and apps, and provides detailed analysis. With this data, you’ll know what to avoid, block, or even delete from your computer.
Traqq also focuses on privacy so you don’t have to worry about your supervisor or the public seeing your sensitive information.
It takes screenshots and records your screen time to encourage accountability. However, it blurs those shots so no one can see your screen’s contents.
Traqq’s Pricing
One of the selling points for Traqq is that its free version allows up to three seats to use all its premium features. You only have to go for the paid version, which starts at $6, if you’re setting up a team of more than 3 members.
Slack
Slack is the main communication platform for most remote teams and freelancers.
It has powerful features that help you organize your communication space and collaborate effectively with colleagues and clients.
As a freelance designer, Slack helps you manage how you communicate with clients. You can use channels to organize your ongoing communications with different clients and teams.
If you’re an employee, you can use Slack to stay in touch with your team members by leveraging its private chats and audio-based communication known as Huddle.
The communication tool also integrates with other platforms from project management to file sharing apps. You can sync it with Google Drive, Asana, and even Jira.
Slack’s Pricing
Slack’s free package comes with almost everything you need. You’re allowed up to 10 integrations but can only do one to one video and voice calls.
With the Pro package, which starts at $6.67 per month, you get everything in free plus group video and voice calls with up to 15 team members, all your organization’s history, and interactions with guests and other organizations.
Sketch
Sketch is one of the best tools for design prototypes, interfaces, wireframes and mockups. Its extensive plugin collection means you can do more with your designs.
The main con of using Sketch is that you’re out of luck if you don’t use a MacBook. But your clients can use its web platform to comment on designs.
Sketch’s Pricing
Slack starts at $9 per editor per month. However, you can pay $99 per editor per year.
Trello
You need a task management tool to organize your projects and workflow.
Trello is a user-friendly task management solution with a simple and intuitive interface. Its drag-and-drop style Kanban boards and other straightforward features means you can set things up without spending too much time learning how to use the app.
Each column in Trello helps you track tasks and you can easily view things that you’re doing, should do, in review, and done.
You can also visually track and manage your monthly, weekly, and daily tasks.
You can use Trello to automate your workflow, thanks to its bot, Butler. You can set up the bot to automatically move cards between columns when a task’s status changes, set due dates, and notify team members about changes.
You can also integrate Trello with other platforms using its Power-Ups. It integrates with tools like Microsoft Teams, Google Drive, and Slack. The Power-Ups also help add analytics, file management, and reporting tools to Trello.
Trello’s Pricing
Trello’s $0 plan comes with a wealth of options that could leave you satisfied. You can use unlimited cards, unlimited storage (10 mb per file), custom backgrounds and stickers, Android and iOS apps, 10 boards per workspace max, unlimited activity log and others.
However, if you want to enjoy everything in the free plan plus advanced features like unlimited boards, custom fields, advanced checklists, saved searches, and more, you’ll have to go for the Standard plan that starts at $5 per user per month. The premium plan goes for $10 per user per month.
You’ll also need to pay for most Power-Ups you use.
Momentum
You’ll need your browser to handle specific tasks, conduct research, collaborate with colleagues, and even use web applications. But that may put you in a tight situation since the Internet is filled with potential distractions.
One pop-up from a website could send you all over the place. Social Media is another powerful distraction that can keep you away from work for hours.
That said, you can use a browser extension like Momentum to stay focused.
The tool works with different browsers, including Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Mozilla Firefox.
Momentum is designed to keep Internet distractions at bay. It reminds you not to abandon your tasks once you open your browser. It also notifies you about work whenever you’re about to switch tabs or launch a website not related to work.
When you activate the extension, it will automatically become your default browser tab and show your calendar and to-do list. It shows inspirational text each day on a new background image.
There’s more.
The tool can help you set schedules, reminders, and targets. You can also use it to track your browsing habits using its badges. It also gamifies the process by extending your chains whenever you complete a positive habit. This way, you’re motivated to stay focused on your tasks and resist the temptation of going off work.
Momentum’s Pricing
You can get Momentum on your desktop browser for free and enjoy most of its features. That said, to enjoy advanced features such as customizations, widgets, and integrations with other platforms like Google To-Do, you have to go for the paid version, which starts at $3.33.
Conclusion
You’ll get to boost your productivity as a designer and reduce your workload if you know the right tools to use.
You can test run the free tiers of the tools above to confirm if they work for you before opening up your wallet.
