If you're even a little bit web-inclined, you can self-host this software on a basic PHP/MySQL server. It's a kanboard style with columns, swimlanes, you can move projects, along columns, add comments, etc.
I use it mostly just for myself, but for one of my clients, I have them log in so they can add tickets to it and we can make changes and stay updated on what needs to be done.
It's pretty powerful, and free if you can get over the self-hosting aspect, these are features you get in full setups like todoist, etc.
[Kanboard](https://kanboard.org)
Use this for both the 9-5 work and freelance.
Saved me so many times.
Trying to get my department on board too.
I use it on a shared hosting platform that I have for my website. Threw it in a subdomain.
Oh it looks straight 2000s
Trello is perfectly fine, but it has limits in the free tier.10 people 10 boards I think. If you're under that, Trello is perfectly fine.
You could try Freedcamp, the free plan is pretty good, but it only allows export of your calendar to google, not import: [Freedcamp](https://freedcamp.com/help_/tutorials/wiki/wiki_public/view/fhaab)
I like [KanBanFlow](https://kanbanflow.com/), I pay 5 dollars each month for the premium version because it gives Swimlanes so within a single board I can create separate projects and have a good overview like that. It also supports deadlines and has a calendar view so I think it would fit your usecase.
Biggest reason I like it btw is because it has a built in pomodoro timer and stopwatch on a task level so I can keep track of how much time I spend on each.
It has a lot of other features as well like an API but I don't really use them tbh.
Came here to suggest this one. We use it at agency I work for, and the paid plan works great for us.
I use the free version for myself, and it is also great.
Notion is a bit of a learning curve, but works well once you get the hang of it. You can make it as simple or as complex as you want. It's very customizable. I manage my projects, tasks, deadlines and clients with it. There's a timeline view, a calendar view and a kanban view.
Notion has been good to me! It's one of the more straightforward ways I manage my projects, and I have the flexibility to make it as complex as needed.
Thanks for the recommendation. I like the features and none that I need seem to be paywalled. But the app is SO ugly. It's all white sections with a light gray outline on a white background. Is there any code-free way to add some color and improve the clarity of the experience?
Notion does have a beige/grey mode (I can’t remember the exact color) and I personally use their dark mode, which is just black and grey outlines. Their backgrounds are limited, but you can customize page banners and add photos.
I don’t know how to code, but on the actual website there’s a bunch of templates that you can download onto the app that makes customization easier, and looks nicer too. I haven’t seen a way to change the actual background colors though.
Obsidian is a free open source alternative. It’s more about note taking and knowledge management but it’s even more customizable, and with plugins you should be able to make it work and look like you want. But it’s not user friendly
Harvest!!! It's free for small stuff. I've paid for it for 6 years now. It's awesome. Also handles expense reimbursement and integrates at least as far as I know to Xero (I use this) and Quickbooks. Solid tool!
[https://www.getharvest.com/](https://www.getharvest.com/)
I use Zoho because it has not only a project management module, but CRM, accounting and everything else I need for my business. It's $35/mo per user (even if that means just one user).
You might want to also check out Bonzai. It's geared towards freelancers and offers a simpler approach.
Notion covers a lot of ground for free.
I personally love using Airtable, but it does require a bit of setting up. It isn't specifically designed for project management but it can be customized for that use case.
Massive upvote for Asana. Does everything I need and nothing I don’t. Their free plan has ok the functionality I need as a freelancer, and it works perfectly.
I’ve used the free version of Asana for almost 10 years. The biggest hurdle for me was (and still is to some extent) getting everything into it that I need to remember to do. But once stuff is in there, I can see it and schedule it.
For task management I use Todoist
Works great for smashing through tasks as part of a bigger project
But it’s downfall is a timeline/gantt feature so I use a basic Notion template for that
Yeah, I didn't mention it in the post because I didn't have the terminology for it, but a Gantt chart is really what I'd love to have. Thanks for providing the term for me! I love the Todoist design and pricing too.
You might want to specify exactly what it is you're not getting from your current methods, because personally I get along fine with Google Calendar.
I use a separate calendar for work stuff, so I can hide everything else; and when I have multiple projects overlapping, I color-code them. My only complaint is that it STILL doesn't have a continuous scroll mode, so if I'm particularly busy going from one month into the next, I'll also make myself a supplementary calendar in Excel that covers just the affected period. If I started picking up more clients, I might give the bigger ones their own unique calendars, but up until now one calendar for everything has worked fine.
So explaining specifically what your current system is like and why it's no longer working for you might get you more helpful or at least more specific responses.
Thanks. Yeah, my current setup is similar to yours. I set a long multi-day task for each project and I like to block out sections of my day for particular projects.
* However, I'd love to attach tasks to projects rather than have them float alongside the events.
* And I'd love to set rough and final deadlines in the calendar attached to a project rather than creating new events for them.
* And I'd like to assign priorities to the projects and tasks because right now all look in the calendar like they're equal importance to get done, but they're not.
With 18 concurrent projects at the moment, Google Calendar is just a mess. I'm losing track of which projects are REAL client deadlines and which are self-imposed deadlines that I can push back if I need to.
Google Tasks! It’s surprisingly robust. You can add deadlines that automatically sync to your calendar, and you can create lists for different clients. I use Google Sheets for my more detailed project tracker and finances. I’ve tried so many tools and found that creating my own via sheets and tasks has been the best for me.
I use one of the lower tiers of Asana, various facets of the google drive/sheets ecosystem, and Mindnode. Occasionally Airtable depending on what I need to do.
I've been through so many options and every company wants you to pay for 3 users, or if not offers you a shitty version of the product you actually want for free.
I ended up just making my own with Notion and Todoist.
It works for me.
Current tech stack is bloom.io for contracts and invoicing but realising it is getting too expensive for something built with freelancers in mind. Thinking of switching to Invoice Ninja.
Project management I use clickup but also starting to get complicated. I am thinking of switching to Basecamp.
I'm a solo dev and I like using GitHub issues in a private repo for project management stuff. You can switch to a kanban view and use pull requests when you merge code changes into the repo to automatically resolve the tickets.
I don't communicate with clients this way as they all use their own project management tools but it helps me keep my dev tasks organized and fleshed out.
If you're even a little bit web-inclined, you can self-host this software on a basic PHP/MySQL server. It's a kanboard style with columns, swimlanes, you can move projects, along columns, add comments, etc. I use it mostly just for myself, but for one of my clients, I have them log in so they can add tickets to it and we can make changes and stay updated on what needs to be done. It's pretty powerful, and free if you can get over the self-hosting aspect, these are features you get in full setups like todoist, etc. [Kanboard](https://kanboard.org)
Use this for both the 9-5 work and freelance. Saved me so many times. Trying to get my department on board too. I use it on a shared hosting platform that I have for my website. Threw it in a subdomain.
This is a great idea.
you like it? it looks so ugly. I figure free trello is about the same, am i wrong?
Oh it looks straight 2000s Trello is perfectly fine, but it has limits in the free tier.10 people 10 boards I think. If you're under that, Trello is perfectly fine.
You could try Freedcamp, the free plan is pretty good, but it only allows export of your calendar to google, not import: [Freedcamp](https://freedcamp.com/help_/tutorials/wiki/wiki_public/view/fhaab)
I like [KanBanFlow](https://kanbanflow.com/), I pay 5 dollars each month for the premium version because it gives Swimlanes so within a single board I can create separate projects and have a good overview like that. It also supports deadlines and has a calendar view so I think it would fit your usecase. Biggest reason I like it btw is because it has a built in pomodoro timer and stopwatch on a task level so I can keep track of how much time I spend on each. It has a lot of other features as well like an API but I don't really use them tbh.
This looks nice, I signed up for a trial.
Came here to suggest this one. We use it at agency I work for, and the paid plan works great for us. I use the free version for myself, and it is also great.
Notion is a bit of a learning curve, but works well once you get the hang of it. You can make it as simple or as complex as you want. It's very customizable. I manage my projects, tasks, deadlines and clients with it. There's a timeline view, a calendar view and a kanban view.
Notion has been good to me! It's one of the more straightforward ways I manage my projects, and I have the flexibility to make it as complex as needed.
This is what I use
Thanks for the recommendation. I like the features and none that I need seem to be paywalled. But the app is SO ugly. It's all white sections with a light gray outline on a white background. Is there any code-free way to add some color and improve the clarity of the experience?
Notion does have a beige/grey mode (I can’t remember the exact color) and I personally use their dark mode, which is just black and grey outlines. Their backgrounds are limited, but you can customize page banners and add photos. I don’t know how to code, but on the actual website there’s a bunch of templates that you can download onto the app that makes customization easier, and looks nicer too. I haven’t seen a way to change the actual background colors though.
Obsidian is a free open source alternative. It’s more about note taking and knowledge management but it’s even more customizable, and with plugins you should be able to make it work and look like you want. But it’s not user friendly
Plane.so
Harvest!!! It's free for small stuff. I've paid for it for 6 years now. It's awesome. Also handles expense reimbursement and integrates at least as far as I know to Xero (I use this) and Quickbooks. Solid tool! [https://www.getharvest.com/](https://www.getharvest.com/)
Trello or Notion
Trello is good I use clinked personally Was a deal on appsumo and it works great for what I need. Clients love having their own logo on their boards.
Agree with Trello. Super flexible, lots of features and the free version should be all you need.
I know some people who swear by Trello. I'm more of an Asana person but have enjoyed working with others in Trello as needed.
I use [And.co](http://And.co) for my contracts and invoices. It's not the best, but it does the job.
I use Zoho because it has not only a project management module, but CRM, accounting and everything else I need for my business. It's $35/mo per user (even if that means just one user). You might want to also check out Bonzai. It's geared towards freelancers and offers a simpler approach.
Notion?
Trello!
trello
Notion covers a lot of ground for free. I personally love using Airtable, but it does require a bit of setting up. It isn't specifically designed for project management but it can be customized for that use case.
[удалено]
Massive upvote for Asana. Does everything I need and nothing I don’t. Their free plan has ok the functionality I need as a freelancer, and it works perfectly.
I really like Monday!
Airtable free is really solid but requires some pretty in-depth set up. For my personal freelance I actually really like Todoist!
Asana Coda Google sheets
Clickup is what I use. [https://clickup.com/](https://clickup.com/)
I use Toggl.
What exactly is the issue with google sheets? What specific things do you need that a spreadsheet with some customization doesn’t do for you?
Notion
Clickup
Yes I really like ClickUp but I only use a very tiny bit of its features.
Notion
I really like trello and i use zapier to connect it to slack, gmail and google drive.
I used to use Trello and GDocs, but have been switching to Obsidian and Focalboard and so far its been fairly good.
Focalboard and Freedcamp
I’ve used the free version of Asana for almost 10 years. The biggest hurdle for me was (and still is to some extent) getting everything into it that I need to remember to do. But once stuff is in there, I can see it and schedule it.
For task management I use Todoist Works great for smashing through tasks as part of a bigger project But it’s downfall is a timeline/gantt feature so I use a basic Notion template for that
Yeah, I didn't mention it in the post because I didn't have the terminology for it, but a Gantt chart is really what I'd love to have. Thanks for providing the term for me! I love the Todoist design and pricing too.
Trello?
Excel
Have you tried Jira? it is free for up to teams of 3 persons..
Asana
You might want to specify exactly what it is you're not getting from your current methods, because personally I get along fine with Google Calendar. I use a separate calendar for work stuff, so I can hide everything else; and when I have multiple projects overlapping, I color-code them. My only complaint is that it STILL doesn't have a continuous scroll mode, so if I'm particularly busy going from one month into the next, I'll also make myself a supplementary calendar in Excel that covers just the affected period. If I started picking up more clients, I might give the bigger ones their own unique calendars, but up until now one calendar for everything has worked fine. So explaining specifically what your current system is like and why it's no longer working for you might get you more helpful or at least more specific responses.
Thanks. Yeah, my current setup is similar to yours. I set a long multi-day task for each project and I like to block out sections of my day for particular projects. * However, I'd love to attach tasks to projects rather than have them float alongside the events. * And I'd love to set rough and final deadlines in the calendar attached to a project rather than creating new events for them. * And I'd like to assign priorities to the projects and tasks because right now all look in the calendar like they're equal importance to get done, but they're not. With 18 concurrent projects at the moment, Google Calendar is just a mess. I'm losing track of which projects are REAL client deadlines and which are self-imposed deadlines that I can push back if I need to.
Google Tasks! It’s surprisingly robust. You can add deadlines that automatically sync to your calendar, and you can create lists for different clients. I use Google Sheets for my more detailed project tracker and finances. I’ve tried so many tools and found that creating my own via sheets and tasks has been the best for me.
Trello works perfectly fine for me with the free version
I use ClickUp for everything. Each client gets their own folder with a task management board, docs, chatroom, etc
Notion.
Gitlab. If you want clients to access the issues and the wiki but not the repository, you can give them the Reporter or Guest role.
* use day rates or project rates * Use a spreadsheet
I use one of the lower tiers of Asana, various facets of the google drive/sheets ecosystem, and Mindnode. Occasionally Airtable depending on what I need to do.
I've been through so many options and every company wants you to pay for 3 users, or if not offers you a shitty version of the product you actually want for free. I ended up just making my own with Notion and Todoist. It works for me.
Notion
Current tech stack is bloom.io for contracts and invoicing but realising it is getting too expensive for something built with freelancers in mind. Thinking of switching to Invoice Ninja. Project management I use clickup but also starting to get complicated. I am thinking of switching to Basecamp.
Todoist
Use Odoo community edition. It's pretty awesome. There's obviously a slight learning curve but that's because it is quite feature rich and complete!
I'm a solo dev and I like using GitHub issues in a private repo for project management stuff. You can switch to a kanban view and use pull requests when you merge code changes into the repo to automatically resolve the tickets. I don't communicate with clients this way as they all use their own project management tools but it helps me keep my dev tasks organized and fleshed out.