Freelance Tools: Project Management

Just like in any other job where you have to collaborate, freelancing requires you to be organized and efficient. One way to do that is to have some sort of a Project Management program where you can track the development of you project. Make no mistake, project management does not only apply to online or software projects. It is used in just almost everything. We just don't notice it but we do project management in one way or another. We may put it in a piece of paper or we do it on our personal computer or we have it in our cellphones.

What is Project Management
Wikipedia define Project Management as the discipline of defining and achieving targets while optimizing the use of resources (time, money, people, materials, energy, space, etc) over the course of a project (a set of activities of finite duration).

Project Management Activities
Also from Wikipedia, Project Management is composed of the following activities:

1. Planning the work
2. Assessing risk
3. Estimating resources
4. Organizing the work
5. Acquiring human and material resources
6. Assigning tasks
7. Directing activities
8. Controlling project execution
9. Reporting progress
10. Analyzing the results based on the facts achieved

Don't be fooled by the length of the list. It can be applied to even the smallest project. Project management being used in freelancing helps us to be methodical in our approach. It gives us a clear view on where our project stands amid the complexity of the project itself. Most importantly, project management helps us manage more than one project at a time which we do most of the time.