best tools for staying organized as a software consultant
Photo by Felipe Furtado on Unsplash
This is the first entry in the Adventures in Software Consulting series. The original series Adventures in Freelancing ended a couple of weeks ago, but you can read the final article in the series here.
Sometimes developers interested in software consulting will reach out to me for advice. When we meet and I explain the process of working through a specific project, I can usually see their eyes widen with shock, fear, surprise, you name it. “I could never do that!” they’ll say. There are a myriad of reasons - they’re not naturally organized, they find it difficult to motivate themselves to start tasks, much less complete them, and they struggle with meeting deadlines.
What they don’t know is, I struggle with those issues too. I just have systems in place to address each of those problems, and today I’m going to share them with you. In an interview on the Hello Turing World podcast, I talked a bit about organization but wanted to discuss in more detail the various tools I use to stay organized. I’m going to talk about four tools in particular: Calendly, Hello Bonsai, Jira, and Miro.
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Calendly is one of many calendar management tools. I use it to make scheduling meetings easier - this way, I can send over a link that allows prospective clients to choose a time to meet that works with their schedule and mine. It cuts down heavily on the typical back-and-forth required to schedule meetings via email and saves time. Without the additional cognitive load, I’m free to focus on other tasks.
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The second tool is Hello Bonsai. (Heads up - this is an affiliate link. I became an affiliate because I recommend this tool so much.) It’s a customer relationship management (CRM) program. You can use Hello Bonsai to draft invoices, proposals, contracts, and more. I like it because I don’t need to worry about sending invoices out to clients on specific dates - I can schedule that in advance. I also like the amount of templates they have available. If you’re unsure where to start when it comes to drafting a proposal or contract, you can use one of their templates as a starting point. If you sign up for a yearly plan using the link above, you’ll get two weeks for free.
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Another tool that I enjoy using is Jira, which is used for project management. In the past I have used Trello to keep track of various tasks and projects but recently switched over to Jira, and I’m enjoying it a lot more than Trello. One of my biggest issues with Trello was that there was no way to link cards - there was no way to indicate that one task was blocked by another or that they should be completed in a specific order. Jira makes this process seamless. Another issue I had with Trello was that there was no clear way to distinguish between different types of tasks other than using labels, which could quickly become distracting and confusing. With Jira, I can create separate epics related to different aspects of my business and client projects so it’s easier to see at a glance what needs to be done in one specific area. I also like their timeline feature that shows you exactly where you are in an epic - this makes it easier to see where your current progress is according to your schedule.
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I only recently started using Miro for software consulting but have found it helpful so far. It’s helpful for creating diagrams and completing retrospectives each week - I do this weekly even though each retro only includes three people: me, myself, and I! There are so many templates that it’s easy to make the site work for a wide variety of tasks.
Those are the four main tools that I use to stay organized as a software consultant. If you’re a software engineer and have worked full-time at a typical tech company, you might’ve noticed that some of the tools I use as a software consultant overlap with the tools commonly used at work. I’ve used these tools professionally as well and they have been helpful for me when doing project management or brainstorming, too, even though my software consulting company is smaller than the average tech company.
Organization isn’t a magical skill that you either possess or don’t. Instead, you can rely on aids to help you so that you can focus on activities that are more impactful to your business. If you’re considering branching out into software consulting, don’t let fears about your own organizational skills stop you.
Sometimes developers interested in software consulting will reach out to me for advice. When we meet and I explain the process of working through a specific project, I can usually see their eyes widen with shock, fear, surprise, you name it. "I could never do that!" they'll say. There are a myriad of reasons - they're not naturally organized, they find it difficult to motivate themselves to start tasks, much less complete them, and they struggle with meeting deadlines, among others.What they don't know is, I struggle with those issues too.
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