Finally, A project management app without the Bullsh*t

Insight from a freelancer barely keeping it together.

Yes, freelancing is great. The freedom to be your own boss and make your own rules. But damn it’s hard sometimes. Unless you have been doing it for a while and you have created your own processes, it can be an endless battle.

The majority of my freelance work is web design and content (writing, photography). From sending quotes to chasing invoices, revisions, adobe crashing, hosting, running out of coffee and tears lubricating my keyboard when I look at my endless to-do list. Always feeling like your 2 weeks behind. All the time. It’s not always as glamorous as people think it is. But it’s great and I love it.

I have always been a stickler for to-do lists. Finishing tasks is another question. Over the past 4 years, I’ve used a bunch of productivity and project management tools (both as a freelancer and manager). I tried them all, Asana, Trello, Monday.com, Basecamp, Jira, Google sheets etc. Along with all the added integrations and apps that you need to integrate with them (Harvest, dropbox, calendar etc). Each had their benefits and their downsides.

I needed something that was free (or very cheap) and something that I didn’t require any brain power — I just needed it to help me, not turn into another app that I needed to learn. I just want milk (a project management tool) that tastes (works) like real milk (as it should).

Which is when I came across Hassl.co

Game changer. Unlike the other project management tools, it didn’t rely on a bunch of integrations. It had everything that I needed on one platform. There’s a free version and a paid version which is around $6.20 a month.

Check it out at https://hassl.co/

(FYI, I’m not getting paid for this. I just really like it and I have spent wayyyy too many hours researching and trialling other apps. Obviously, it won’t be the right choice for everyone but you can make your own decision. This is my honest insight.)

So, what makes this project management tool better than the others?

There are a number of small reasons why I have stuck with Hassl over the others and a few big reasons. But the key differences are:

1. Usability,
2. time tracking,
3. Gantt charts,
4. Files,
5. chat and
6. price.

Usability

Because it’s easy AF to use and my attention span is dwindling.

I have a general rule for new apps, if it’s unintuitive and I can’t work it out within 15 minutes, I’ll leave it. Yes, a bit harsh but if it proves to take up too much of my time and energy, I’ll start spending more time on the actual app instead of completing my work.

My mum isn’t the most tech-savvy person around. She has an Ipad but still uses Yahoo as a search engine (it baffles me). But I told her to use Hassl to help organise her community garden — she loves it. So if my mum can use it without any problems, I’m sure you can too.

There is a mobile app but I generally just use the desktop version. Although the mobile app is great to transfer files from your phone to your computer and visa-Versa. I generally use this for photos and audio recordings.

Time tracking

Because I’m still terrible at quoting and clients are dubious

Unlike working in a normal job where you get paid per hour, regardless of whether you’re playing cube field or doing real work. When you’re a freelancer, you only get paid when you do the actual work. And sometimes (more than sometimes), I’ll spend 20 hours on something but I’ll only get paid for 15 hrs because I under-quoted the amount of the time it would take. Yes, sometimes that’s just the way it goes. Problems arise and it’s impossible to foresee spending 5 hours to rectify it. But it’s not until you start to track your hours that you begin to realise what is draining your energy, what is making you the most money and how much time you are really wasting. For example, I found that building smaller websites (3–5 pages) was far more worthwhile than building larger websites (10+ pages). Even though I made more money from larger websites, I was actually making less money per hour due to the increased workload, revisions, harder to get invoices paid and taking longer. Now I build 2 smaller websites in the same amount of time as I did for 1 larger website — but I make more money. I wouldn’t have realised this if it wasn’t for tracking my hours.

Here is how I make use of time tracking:

1. I quote the amount of time I think it will take me to complete a project. This ensures that I don’t have too many projects going on at one time and don’t sit at my desk and weep like a lost pup.
2. I use previous projects as an example for similar projects so I can quote accurately
3. I track the time of each task I do and analyse it at the end of the month (see what takes up most of my time and whether I can change anything)
4. I also send my clients a list of tasks that I have completed and the number of hours it took. I generally do this when I am half-way through a project and when the project is completed. This shows the client that I am in fact, contrary to popular belief, doing work and not playing cube field.

Gantt charts and Timelines

Because if I can’t visualise something, I’m doomed.

Did you know that Gantt stands for Generalized Activity Normalization Time Table? Yeah, who cares, it’s not important. But they are bloody handy.

The best thing about Gantt Charts/timelines is that you don’t need to create them, they are automatically generated from your task list. All you need to do is add all of your tasks inside your project and assign them due dates — bonza!

This is incredibly handy for long term projects with lost of moving parts, like a big website build or marketing campaign. For example, I will segment a website build into 8 main stages. Here is a basic overview:

1. Client brief
2. Mockup
3. Assets and content
4. Wordpress design (Home and services page)
5. Feedback
6. Finish build
7. Review
8. Final changes, Testing and optimisation

Files

Because I lose stuff, old people suck and collaboration is seamless.

I have always used Google Drive to store my files. Mainly because it’s cheaper than Dropbox and I use Google Docs almost every day. I still use Google Drive to back up a lot of my work and to send large files. But I use Hassl for everything else. For each project and task, I am working on, I’ll upload all of the files into Hassl.

I’ll also use it to upload client documents and assets (photos, logos, etc). This is an absolute lifesaver when collaborating with other people on a project. I will sometimes hire other designers, developers, writers, videographers or photographers to help with a project. They will often need a bunch of information about the client. Instead of sending them all of the information, all I do is invite them to the project in Hassl and they can access everything themselves. I’ll create a brief and add any files they need. If there are certain files and tasks that you don’t want them to see, I just create a separate milestone that only I can see.

I will also invite clients to their project within Hassl. Sometimes they will join and others just prefer to let me do my own thing. Frankly, I prefer to have them more involved but I won’t force them. When I create a new project, the client will be able to log in and see what progress you are up too. They will also be able to chat with you and access any files that you have added to the project. This might seem a bit strange, like they’re peaking into your personal workspace, spying on you and making sure you aren’t off playing cubefield. But it actually saves me a lot of time.

Instead of sending files over email and losing attachments, everything is in Hassl. Which means that the client and I have easy access to everything whenever we need it. It also means that I don’t have to use Google Drive or Dropbox or Wetransfer (because old people struggle with ‘the cloud’ and always email me 2 weeks later asking for the files again).

Chat

Because email is the worst.

I really don’t like emails. They take up so much of my time and most emails don’t even need to be sent as an email. If I can, I’ll call, but sometimes I just need to ask a quick question.

Even though I predominately work on my own, I often collaborate with other freelancers on larger projects. When I collaborate with others, I’ll add them to the Hassl project and then communicate with them via the instant chat. We can easily send files to each other and give feedback quickly.

I only have a few clients who use the instant chat function. Mostly during a stage of a project which requires back-and-forth feedback or when we are trying to solve a problem (usually with hosting or website changes).

It’s surprising how much more work you can do when you aren’t spending hours replying to stupid questions via email.

TLDR.

Because reading is hard.

Project management tools won’t save the world. I still write notes in a notebook and write lists with a pen. I’ll still take the opportunity to jump on a phone call or have a face-to-face meeting when I can. But Hassl is there to keep me in line.

I guess it’s why they called it Hassl, because the major benefit I find with using the app is that it takes away a lot of the normal day-to-day hassles of freelancing.

Here are the main reasons why I love this app:

1. Communication with clients and collaboration is easier
2. Sending and accessing files is easier
3. Planing projects and finish tasks is easier
4. I procrastinate less
5. Clients are happier
6. I have fewer emails
7. It’s easier to use it than not use it.

Hassl is free but there is also a business version which I use (it’s $6.20 a month and there is a 2-week free trial if you want to test it out).

https://hassl.co/hassl-business/

Some other apps I swear by

Because most of the time I’m a trainwreck and the rest of the time I’m off-the-rails.

1. Last Pass — keep all of your passwords safe and easy to access
2. Wave Accounting — a free accounting and invoicing platform with a very sexy UI.
3. Google keep — for ideas and notes. I’ll then transfer them into tasks if needed.
4. Google Drive — 100gb is $2 a month.
5. Grammarly — because English is stupid.
6. Artboard Studio — A web app like photoshop but for mockups
7. Envato Elements — a bunch of graphic templates, mock-ups, stock photos, icons, themes,… the list goes on. Its $30 month for unlimited downloads.