8 Best Calendar Apps for Freelance Writers in 2021

How you can get organized and manage your content easily

Staying organized at work is crucial to meet deadlines, be productive, and achieve a healthy work-life balance. But for many work-from-home creative people, like writers, it’s not always easy to establish a routine. Clients come and go, and workload varies, making for unpredictable workdays. But scheduling tasks is still necessary. That’s where calendar apps for freelance writers come in!

If you’re a freelancer who makes your own schedule, a sure-fire way to organize ideas, weekly routines, and content is to download a good calendar app. So, having an app to write down your ideas and schedule your writing projects will make a huge difference in productivity.

Today, we’re going to go through some of the most tangible benefits of calendar apps and organizational tools. And best of all, we’ll share the most efficient free and freemium online calendars to help you increase your writing productivity and communication with your team and clients.

How Does a Calendar App Help You Stay Organized?

Using a calendar app allows you to organize and check all your events, meetings, and tasks with a single click. By organizing goals and content scheduling, you can develop your ideas logically, plan ahead, and save time. Additionally, with the right calendar apps for freelance writers, you get benefits like:

1. Better Organization of Ideas

A calendar allows you to better organize what you publish, as you can group similar posts and plan your content ahead of time.

2. Research Efficiency

By setting up a calendar, you can allocate time for research and content writing. And with better time management, you can spend more time researching high-quality content.

3. Establish a Better Rhythm

You can follow a schedule and develop a consistent workflow. You will have a global vision of your publications and be able to track your progress.

4. Team Coordination

If you run a writing agency, you also can make all the information available to your team. Everyone can collaborate within the calendar to complete and assign tasks.

5. Access from Anywhere

Whether you are at home, shopping, or traveling, you can access your calendar to set new milestones or attach files. All you have to do is download the application on your mobile device or laptop.

6. Set Reminders

Set reminders by adding an event to the calendar. You’ll receive upcoming event notifications, which means you’ll never miss deadlines or forget important meetings.

7. Set Up Meetings

If your work schedule involves interacting with clients or discussing writing proposals, you can use a calendar app to set up meetings, send meeting requests, and notify your clients about the meeting details.

Calendar Apps for Freelance Writers: Our Top Picks

There are many calendar apps available for download these days. Some are free and some are paid. However, not all are ideal for writers. We need apps that are accessible on the web, can synch across all devices, and have multiple organizational tools to manage clients and schedule content. So we’ve picked eight reliable calendars that will fit your writing routines and creativity needs.

2 Best Free Calendar Apps

Tech giants like Google and Microsoft have free calendars available for their users. These calendars are fully functional and have several features to organize your workflow and content.

1. Google Calendar

Google calendar works quite well and lets you easily add tasks and events such as meetings, invitations, and content. It is completely free and syncs with your Gmail account. So, important dates and personal information are automatically added.

Its interface is intuitive and everybody can use it. And with it, you get 15 GB of cloud storage on Google Drive. Google Calendar has important features for writers that will improve your daily productivity like:

• Invitations. Create event invitations, send them to your team members, and keep track of their responses and comments.
• Look up. Search public calendars to discover events like podcasts or webinars that may interest you and add them to your own calendar.
• Mobile access. Receive notifications and event reminders on your phone. This feature comes installed by default on Android devices.
• App integration. Get access and connect easily with other Google tools like Gmail, Google Meet, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, YouTube, etc. It also works perfectly with external applications like Asana or Trello.
• Basic help and training. Google Calendar offers free training videos to help you get started.

These features make Google Calendar the most popular free calendar app for freelance writers. Its flexibility lets you connect all your work on a single platform. And if you’re a fan of the Google Suite, it will facilitate work. For example, save your ideas and first drafts in Google Keep. Then, export them to the calendar. Or simply access your Google Docs and attach a file to your calendar to come back to the task later.

2. Microsoft Outlook Calendar

Microsoft Outlook Calendar is a scheduling platform integrated with your Outlook email and Microsoft suite. This calendar helps you create appointments, organize meetings, add content ideas, set reminders, and much more. It has interesting features that enhance content scheduling and organization such as:

• Integration. Full integration with Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Access to Microsoft Office files from Outlook, stored on OneDrive. Also, it easily integrates with LinkedIn and CRMs like HubSpot and Zoho.
• Security. Microsoft security protects your email calendar and files.
• Personalization. You can get icons to personalize your calendar and change colors to differentiate tasks.
• Files attachments. You can attach Office files and share them with your writing team.
• Meeting requests. Send meeting requests to your clients and notify them by email. The invitees receive the request in their inbox. When they open the request, they can accept or decline the meeting by clicking a button.

All its free capabilities will help you save time and money. So, it is definitely a great management tool if you’re a regular user of Microsoft Office. You’ll have all the integrations that Microsoft offers to its clients, and these features highly benefit freelance writers. For instance, you can export Microsoft Word or OneDrive files to the calendar, send them to your clients or editor, and set deadlines with comments.

6 Best Freemium Calendar Apps

There are many freemium calendar apps that are easily downloadable on the internet. We’ve narrowed down the most established brands with features that will stand out to freelance writers.

1. Zoho Calendar

Zoho Calendar is a web-based calendar app that lets you schedule, manage, and track your appointments, meetings, and other activities. It is a great content management tool too. It can connect with other Zoho tools such as Zoho CRM, Zoho Mail, Zoho Projects and Zoho Campaigns. Particularly, with Zoho Calendar, you can:

• Share and publish your daily activities with your editor or team members
• Set deadlines and monitor advances
• Check the agenda of other users and schedule multiple events
• Collaborate with your team members, send invitations, and keep your business planning on track
• Set reminders
• Attach files and add project descriptions
• Change the view to daily, weekly, or monthly
• Connect your calendar with Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar

Zoho Calendar is one of the best calendar apps for freelance writers. Its free version is useful and lets you organize your project. But it has limitations as it doesn’t automatically connect with all Zoho products. For integrating your calendar with Zoho’s products, you’d have to purchase integrations in Zoho Marketplace. So, if your business is booming and you manage multiple clients, you might want to opt for the Zoho Standard Plan for $12/month to keep all your business apps in one place.

2. Calendly

Calendly is an organizational software and project management tool that works well for writers. It specializes in automating the process of closing business meetings and increases efficiency in your daily tasks. Like other calendars, it synchronizes with the most used calendars worldwide and it has the main necessary features like:

• Scheduling your daily meetings
• Detecting the time zone of guests, so there is no confusion when planning meetings
• Offering hundreds of options to customize your calendar displays and meetings: one-on-one appointments, group appointments, external client appointments, etc.

Calendly is perfect if you have video meetings with clients. It shows your working hours and working days. For example, if you meet your clients via video call to discuss the terms of your contract or how to write their content, with Calendly you can set your availability, working hours, and the expected meeting length.

This app works quite well in its free version. But, depending on your needs, you can choose among Calendly packages. You can try a Pro version for 15 days to learn how it works. Alternatively, you can get Calendly Premium for $8/month. With this, you get premium support and it removes Calendly branding, provides access to full integrations, allows over 10 users, and much more.

3. Doodle

Doodle calendar is a time management tool that helps writers keep multiple projects and meetings organized. It is easy to use and great for coordinating meetings. In particular, Doodle helps you:

• Invite, meet, and manage clients or team members
• Schedule tasks and share them with others
• Send survey links by email or through the platform
• Book meetings quickly
• Automatically schedule meetings with the correct time zone for all participants
• Integrate with your external calendars like Microsoft Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar, or iCloud Calendar
• Set reminders and customize themes
• Change views and personalize time slots

Its free account gives you the basic tools to manage your activities. It even allows you to create polls and connect your personal calendar to the application for free. However, to access its full integrations, you can get the Pro plan for $6.95/month.

4. Calendar

Calendar is an app that helps you focus on work, save time, and be productive. It’s been on the market for over 10 years and is available for iOS and Android. With Calendar, you’ll have the following features:

• Schedule meetings
• Share your custom link with team members and clients
• Create and customize calendar appointment slots
• Keep track of all your tasks and appointments
• Attach files and track projects
• Share links

Calendar is constantly updated with new capabilities. It uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give its users unique experiences. So, the more you use Calendar, the more it learns about you. This app is tailored to freelance writers and it helps you be more productive.

With the basic plan, you have the essential functions for individual use. This includes a personalized calendar and a basic workspace. But with the Calendar Standard plan ($6/month billed annually), you get more features like premium support, analytics, and Zapier integration. Using Zapier, you can connect Calendar with multiple productivity apps like Asana or Zoom.

5. Any.do

Any.do is an app that allows users to manage goals and share tasks in collaborative environments within a single interface. It allows you to make lists and manage tasks in a versatile and efficient way. You can attach all types of files including videos, audios, photos, PDF, etc.

One of Any.do’s best features is its full compatibility with third-party calendars such as Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar. Also, it’s possible to use your calendar with project management tools such as Asana or Trello. And it is also available for iOS and Android with automatic data syncing. It increases productivity and flexibility. Specifically, it has features like:

• Location-based reminders
• To-do lists
• Daily planner
• Easy file attachment
• Project progress tracking
• Calendar sharing with editors or collaborators

Any.do’s free version is enough for a growing business or for working on your own. It performs simple tasks and schedules appointments with clients. But if you manage a large team of writers, it can be restrictive. You wouldn’t have the possibility to add multiple users. In that case, you should get the Premium version for $2.99/month billed annually. You will enjoy additional features like WhatsApp reminders, color tags, and theme customization.

6. Teamup

Teamup Calendar helps freelance writers organize activities and communicate efficiently. It works directly within the browser and also has an application for Android and iOS. Teamup has the basic functionalities of all other calendars like organizing your team’s schedule, work management, link sharing, etc. But its most important features are:

• Multiple views (per day, per week, per month, as a list)
• Calendar sync
• Calendar/reminder system
• Collaboration tools
• Color codes/icons
• Scheduling and task management

Teamup focuses on the user experience and visual elements. This is a significant advantage if you create visual content when writing, and you can download it for free. But keep in mind that its free version only works for personal use. If you need more features like unlimited users or a historical report, you can get the Plus plan for $8/month billed annually.

You’ll Definitely Stay Organized with These Calendar Apps for Freelance Writers

Calendar apps for freelance writers come with many benefits. Being organized increases your productivity, and planning ahead helps you create better content. For this reason, a calendar app is a common tool today. But if you want to go even further, you can create your own content calendar, or try the Leadpages free content marketing calendar as an alternative to these calendars.

So, just pick the right app for your needs and budget. Traditional paper calendars fall short for freelance writers! And a good calendar app will improve your communication with clients and team members, save your time, and optimize your efforts.

Originally published at https://www.jenniferberube.com on April 28, 2021.