My Remote Work Toolkit: What’s On My Laptop Every Day
Ten years of freelancing leaves you with a lot of tabs open. These are the ones I actually keep.
For Staying Organised
Trello
Trello is my personal command centre. I use it kanban-style (columns, cards, drag and drop) – to manage all my own projects and tasks. It’s visual, it’s satisfying, and there is something deeply therapeutic about moving a card into the “Done” column at the end of the day.
If you’ve never tried kanban and you have more than three things happening at once in your life, start here.
Asana
Where Trello is for me, Asana is for my clients. A lot of clients come with Asana already set up, and honestly, it’s a solid choice for collaborative project tracking. Tasks, subtasks, deadlines, comments – everything lives in one place, and nothing falls through the cracks. I don’t choose it, but I’ve made peace with it.
For Client Communication
Zoom and Google Meet
I’m not going to pretend one is dramatically better than the other. Most clients have a preference, I use whatever they’re on. Both work. Both occasionally freeze at inconvenient moments. Such is the remote work experience.
Spark Email
This one I actually chose, and I’d recommend it to anyone managing multiple email accounts. The free version handles everything I need: multiple inboxes, clean interface, built-in calendar. The paid version adds AI features and meeting summaries, which I haven’t needed yet but probably will eventually.
Calendly
Calendly earns its place every time I’m onboarding a new client. Instead of the back-and-forth of “are you free Tuesday?” “not Tuesday, what about Thursday?”, I send a link. They pick a time. Done. For anyone doing discovery calls or client check-ins, this is the kind of small thing that makes you look more professional than you probably feel.
For Getting Paid
I’ve written a whole post about international payment fees, so I’ll keep this short: Wise is the reason I stopped wincing every time a payment cleared. You can hold multiple currencies, receive money via local bank transfers with no incoming fees, and convert at rates that don’t make you want to cry. If you’re freelancing across borders, this is the one tool I’d push you towards before anything else.
[→ Open a Wise account]
PayPal and Stripe
Still on the list because some clients insist. PayPal is convenient but expensive. Stripe is cleaner but more setup. I use whichever one the client requires and try not to think about the fees.
For File Management
Dropbox
Contracts, photos, large files that are too big to email – Dropbox handles all of it. I also use it to share files with clients when something is too large to attach. The free tier has limits, but for most of what I do, it’s enough.
For the Business Side
Zoho Books
The unglamorous but necessary part of freelancing: keeping track of money in and money out. Zoho Books does this without costing a fortune. I use it for income and expense tracking, generating financial reports, and invoicing. You can also invite your accountant directly to do tax returns, track project time and convert it to invoices, and manage subcontractors if you work with them. It also integrates with PayPal and Stripe, which saves a surprising amount of manual entry.
Upwork and Fiverr
Between the two, these are where most of my clients have come from over the years.
Fiverr is where I landed my first client. A small data entry job that paid $45 before the platform took its cut. It’s good for getting started when you have no reputation and need someone to take a chance on you.
Upwork is where the work got more serious. Client quality is generally higher, projects tend to be longer-term, and the relationships stick. The trade-off is a flat 10% service fee on everything you earn, plus Connects to submit proposals. The math isn’t always fun, but the volume of work makes it worth showing up.
Start on Fiverr. Grow into Upwork. That’s roughly how it went for me.
For Working Smarter
AI Assistant
I use an AI tool to help draft emails, think through problems, build small automations, and generally talk through anything I’m stuck on. I’m not going to pretend I do everything manually anymore – nobody should. The trick is knowing when to use it and when to actually think for yourself.
The One Thing I’d Tell You
You don’t need all of these on day one.
When I started freelancing, I had an email account, a PayPal, and a lot of determination. The tools came in as the work got more complex. Start with what solves the problem you have right now. Add the rest when you actually need it.
That’s the toolkit. Your version will look different, and that’s fine.
Next up: why I keep my personal and business finances completely separate — and the mistake I made before I figured that out.