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We’ve all heard the adage “time is money,” and it’s never more true than when you’re a freelancer paid hourly. Not only does the number of hours you work directly correspond with how much you make, you’re also the only one tracking these hours. You don’t have a boss to tally up your time sheets or payroll department calculating your paychecks. It’s up to you to carefully manage your time and make sure you get paid for every second.
To do this, you can definitely use the old pen-and-paper method, but that often leaves too much room for human error, especially among those of us who are slightly terrible at math (ahem). A mistake can cost you hundreds of dollars, so many freelancers choose to outsource the burden of time-tracking to apps designed to do it better, faster, and more accurately. Here are a few of our favorites.
Best Time-Tracking Apps for Personal Productivity
1. Productivity Challenge Timer
If you struggle with procrastination, focus, and recording your hours, this app makes sure you track them. Available on Android and iOS, the Productivity Challenge Timer uses the Pomodoro Technique to segment work into intervals.
The free version of the app lets you designate up to four separate projects, and breaks down your work sessions into smaller chunks. You’re reminded to take a 5-minute break every 20 minutes, and the app aggressively reminds you to get back to work if you’re still slacking after the break is up. Total time spent on each project is also tracked, although you can’t break it down by day, week, or month.
For those who work from home and constantly have the black hole of the internet lurking one unopened tab away, an app like this can be great for keeping you on track.
2. Hours
This time-tracking app has a design as simple as its name. Hours offers easy-to-use time tracking without any unnecessary features getting in the way.
With both an iOS app and a web app that sync together, Hours allows you to create a visual timeline to easily identify dead time throughout your schedule, create reminders, and set rules about time rounding. You can easily switch timers and projects, and access total values for each one.
The only downside to Hours may be that Android lovers are out of luck. To date, the app has only been available for iOS.
3. Timesheet
In the interests of equal-opportunity time-tracking, here’s one just for the ‘droids. Timesheet offers users a connected web-based and Android app to effectively track time between different projects. They can easily see a breakdown of total time into daily, weekly, and monthly totals for each project or client.
Timesheet also allows you to assign rates to each client or project, so that you can see just how much money your time ends up making you.
Best Employee Time-Tracking Apps
4. QuickBooks
Although it’s not cool to brag, we’d be remiss if we didn’t toot our own horns a little bit here because QuickBooks has one of the most robust time-tracking apps out there.
The QuickBooks’ time-tracking feature allows you to easily track not only the time you spend on a project, but the time your employees and contractors spend, too. They can fill out their hours through QuickBooks Online from any computer, making it ideal for remote or site-based work.
You can also easily generate reports, including:
- Recent/Edited time activities
- Time activities by customer
- Time activities by employee
- Unbilled time
5. TSheets
TSheets is a time-tracking app that seamlessly integrates with QuickBooks. Your employees can use it to track their hours and submit timesheets from any device. You can assign jobs, locate your employees with GPS (no more “Are you at the site?” texts!), and even run reports to figure out where your time and money is best spent.
TSheets is free if it’s just you using it, and you can add up to 99 additional users for $5/month per user, plus a $16/month base fee.
6. BillQuick
BillQuick also plays nicely with QuickBooks, and users love it for the additional features it offers. It’s a cloud-based system which allows for easy time-tracking, with added bonuses like expense reporting, receipt recording, and report generating.
These features do come with a cost, however. BillQuick starts at around $8/month per user, and goes up depending on which functions you need to use. However, it allows for some customization, so you don’t pay for features you don’t use.
Time’s Up!
No matter which app, program, or system you choose to track your time and that of your employees, always remember the end goal: to free up more of your time to work.
Make sure you avoid apps with hard-to-use interfaces, complicated time-entry processes, or challenging reports. There’s no use spending tons of your time on an app designed to track it.
Keeping a calendar can change your life. A calendar will keep you from missing meetings and appointments, as well as make your life a lot less hectic. Plus, having all of your appointments on your calendar frees up your brain to work on more important tasks.
In our experience, digital calendars are far easier to manage than paper ones. Still, there are lots of calendar apps out there. Which one should you choose? In this article, we’ll help you decide.
Below, we’ve put together a list of the best calendar apps out there. Whether you’re looking for an app that gives you lots of control, or you just want a simple calendar that stays out of your way, there’s an app for you on this list.
Google Calendar
Overview: A dependable calendar app that integrates with most productivity apps.
Google Calendar is an excellent cross-platform calendar app. It’s the default calendar on Android phones, and it also works well on iPhones. It’s simple to create new events whether you’re on your phone or computer, and everything always stays synced no matter what time zone you’re in.
Plus, Google Calendar integrates with just about any other productivity app you can think of, so it will readily fit into your existing productivity system.
If you also use Gmail, then it gets even better, as Google Calendar can automatically create events based on emails you receive. This is a lifesaver when booking things like flights or concert tickets.
Price: Free
Platforms: Android, iOS, Web
Apple Calendar
Overview: A basic calendar app for Apple enthusiasts.
If you’re all in on Apple products, then Apple Calendar is an excellent choice. It keeps all of your events synced across your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, and whatever shiny device Apple will dream up next.
As far as calendar functionality, Apple Calendar offers all the features you’d expect, including a strong integration with Siri that allows you to add events with just a few words.
Price: Free
Platforms: iOS, Mac, Web
Outlook Calendar
Overview: A decent calendar app that’s likely the default at your office or school.
Love it or hate it, you’re probably familiar with Outlook Calendar. It’s more or less ubiquitous in large companies and institutions such as universities. In fact, this is the app’s main advantage: lots of people already have it and use it.
The app itself is certainly solid. You can create events and reminders, send meeting requests, and view multiple calendars at once.
There aren’t any additional “fancy” or otherwise noteworthy features, and that’s fine. If you just want a basic calendar for keeping track of your meetings and work events, Outlook Calendar is perfect for the job.
Price: $69.99/year as part of Office 365 Personal, though your employer or school probably provides free access.
Platforms: Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, Web
Woven
Overview: Flexible templates and built-in scheduling tools help you save time.
Moving beyond familiar calendar apps, we have Woven. The app markets itself towards “busy professionals,” and it has a lot of interesting features that you won’t find in basic calendar apps.
To start, Woven offers “Smart Templates” to help you save time when scheduling common types of events. For instance, if you regularly have lunch meetings at the same restaurant, you can create a template that includes the restaurant location.
Speaking of meetings, Woven also includes a built-in meeting scheduling tool. This can help eliminate the back and forth emails normally required to schedule a meeting. They even offer an integration with Zoom, allowing you to easily schedule and manage your Zoom meetings from within Woven. And they recently launched an iPad app as well.
Really, the only thing Woven lacks is an Android app, though the company reports that this is in development.
Price: Free
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Platforms: iOS, Mac, Windows, Web
Meetingbird
Overview: Schedule meetings without endless email exchanges.
Whether you’re a student or professional, scheduling meetings is the worst. You can spend weeks sending emails back and forth trying to find a time that works for both of you, to the point that you forget why you wanted to meet in the first place.
Meetingbird aims to solve this problem. The app syncs with Outlook Calendar and Google Calendar so that your availability for meetings is always up to date.
When you want to schedule a meeting, all you have to do is send a link with a list of times you’re available. The recipient then picks the time that works best for them, and the meeting they schedule is automatically synced to both of your calendars.
We also like that Meetingbird integrates with Zoom, our video call tool of choice, as well as Zapier, Slack, Trello, and more.
Price: Free
Platforms: Web
Best Booking Apps
Fantastical 2
Overview: A multilingual Mac/iOS calendar app with one of the best Apple Watch apps we’ve seen.
If you’re an Apple user looking for an alternative to the default calendar apps on Mac/iOS, you should check out Fantastical 2.
The main strength of Fantastical 2 is its deep integration with the Apple ecosystem. Whether you’re on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, Fantastical 2 offers a beautiful, simple calendar that always stays synced.
The app has especially strong natural language processing, letting you quickly create events whether you’re at your desk or on the go. You can even do some more sophisticated things such as setting geofenced reminders (allowing you to get reminders only when you’re in a particular location).
Finally, Fantastical 2 also integrates with iCloud, Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar, and a variety of other apps. And the app is fully localized for English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, making it great for multilingual users or workplaces.
Price:
- Mac: $49.99 (after a 21-day free trial)
- iPhone/Apple Watch: $4.99
- iPad: $9.99
Platforms: iOS, Mac
My Study Life
Overview: A calendar app built for the unique scheduling needs of students.
While most calendar apps target busy professionals, My Study Life is different. It’s a calendar app built specifically for students, and it has some features you won’t see in other calendar apps.
To start, My Study Life includes smart scheduling features to help you keep up with your classes and extracurricular activities. If your class schedule varies with the week, My Study Life can account for that, ensuring you don’t forget a class. There’s even a special section for scheduling your exams.
Plus, My Study Life syncs your schedule across devices and works offline. This means you’ll always be able to keep track of your classes and assignments no matter your location or internet access.
Price: Free
Platforms: Android, iOS, Web
Timepage
Overview: A beautiful calendar app with handy weather and travel information.
Hotel Booking Apps
If you love the design of Moleskine notebooks and planners, then Timepage is the calendar app you’ve been waiting for. This iOS-only app is truly beautiful, featuring an elegant, uncluttered interface that you’d expect from Moleskine.
Beneath the aesthetics, however, Timepage is a powerful calendar app. It includes natural language processing to let you easily type in events, as well as a “heat-map” view that shows how busy your month is at a glance.
Best of all, Timepage integrates with a variety of other apps to show you weather alerts and travel times to events. This way, you’ll not only remember that you have to be somewhere, but you’ll also get there on time.
Price: $1.99/month or $11.99/year (after a 7-day free trial)
Platforms: iOS
Business Calendar 2
Overview: The best calendar app for customizing your calendar’s appearance.
I’ll admit, “Business Calendar 2” sounds like something straight out of Office Space (if they had calendar apps back then, that is). But while the name might be a bit weird, the app is anything but.
Business Calendar 2 is great if you want a lot of control over the way your calendar looks. In addition to the standard day, week, month, and year views, you can adjust the calendar view to show anywhere from 1 to 14 days. And you can quickly swipe between these views so you can always find what you’re looking for.
What really makes Business Calendar 2 shine, however, are its event scheduling features. You can easily drag events around on the calendar and quickly enter event details without excessive swiping.
Plus, the app’s natural language processing lets you enter events just by talking into your phone. The app will even learn your preferences over time, automatically suggesting common locations or attendees.
Price: Free (with ads). Upgrade to the Pro version for $6.99 to remove ads and get additional features such as file attachments and event templates.
Platforms: Android
Calendar Apps Help Keep Your Life Organized
I hope this guide has helped you find the best calendar app for your needs. Whether you stick with a popular calendar app such as Google Calendar or go with a less conventional pick such as Timepage, keeping a calendar is just one part of being productive.
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Image Credits: Outlook Calendar, Woven, Timepage, paper calendar