In today’s article we want to focus on how home business owners can make their life easier and learn to work smarter, not harder. Working for yourself means that you have to do absolutely everything that a regular company does through a number of employees: create and promote products, build advertising and marketing strategies, keep your accounting books, and organize your schedule.
That’s pretty daunting, isn’t it? However, a lot of internet home business owners are successful and satisfied with their work/life balance. What is their secret? They use various computer tools and mobile apps to lighten their workload, automate a part of their tasks, and keep track of everything going on in and with their business.
We have already discussed various tools for monitoring and automating your social media marketing activities. Today, we will recommend other useful tools, for various activities related to running a home-based business.
1. Bookkeeping Software
Hiring an accountant can be quite expensive, and it will impact your budget heavily, at least during the initial phase after launching your business when your revenues will be quite modest. However, you do not have to hire an accountant for the simple bookkeeping operations of an internet home business.
Instead, you can purchase a licence for QuickBooks Pro, one of the most popular online bookkeeping tools among small business owners. Starting at $10 per month for new businesses, QuickBooks Pro has a simple, user-friendly interface, allowing you to prepare and file your tax return with confidence.
2. Productivity Software
Keeping everything organized and distraction-free is one of the biggest challenges for first-time entrepreneurs and business owners. If you feel that you are losing too much time looking for documents, information, emails, and keeping track of your tasks for the day, you need to bring all this data together in one simple and multi-functional app: Evernote.
Evernote allows you to create tick-off task list, clip anything you find on the internet, import emails and synchronize all this data across all the devices where you have installed the software: desktop computer, laptop, smartphone, etc. All these features, plus 1GB of storage space per month, are offered for the affordable subscription fee of $13 per year for the Plus plan.
3. Blogging Tool
WordPress is the absolute winner in this category. Free to use and with tons of affordable professional looking themes, featuring a simple and very user friendly backend interface (if you know how to use a text editor, you can use WordPress as well), this is the number 1 choice for small and large companies, and professional and amateur bloggers. Featuring easily integrated social media buttons and SEO plugins, WordPress helps you create well-optimized content and share it easily across all your social media accounts.
4. Backup and Recovery Software
Computer crashes happen every day, without notice. The same goes for accidental deletion of important data. It is a devastating loss for anyone – but even more so for business owners, who may lose client data or accounting documents. This is why you need to invest in a reliable data backup and recovery service, such as Mozy.
Starting at $5 per month, Mozy offers military-grade data protection, automatic backup and data encryption. This is all the assurance you need that, no matter what happens to your computer or smartphone, your valuable data is safe.
5. Time Tracking
Time tracking is important if you are providing services billed by the hour, such as tutoring services. But it is also extremely useful for you while you learn the art of time management. For these and many other reasons you should install and use Toggl.
Toggl allows you to keep track of your tasks, create activity reports and timesheets, split time spent per client or per task – and all these for free.
Using these five types of tools and apps, your daily schedule will become simpler, better organized, and allow you to enjoy a healthy balance between work and your personal life.