Finding time for just about anything as an entrepreneur can sometimes seem next to impossible—you’re juggling your personal life, on top of your business, and trying to wear a million different hats to make sure everything runs smoothly. So having things that can make your life a bit easier and organized, can help you manage your time more efficiently, to give you more time to work on all the other things that seem to be piling onto your to-do list. Here are five tools that can help keep you organized amidst the chaos of your start-up.

Basecamp for project management

Basecamp is a project management tool that helps you keep on top of all those to-do lists. How many times have you written a to-do list and then forgotten it somewhere or lost it, and had to start all over again? Basecamp allows you to divide your to-do lists by project, and also assign tasks and due dates to yourself or people on your team. You’ll get friendly reminders and recaps each day in your e-mail inbox that will help you remember just what it was you had to get done. You can also download their apps on your iPhone or Android device to have your to-do lists wherever you go.

CamCard for networking

You know that pile of business cards that are scattered in a random drawer in your office, in your car, your purse, or just about everywhere? CamCard helps you better organize the business cards of the contacts you make. Available on all mobile devices, capture a picture of business cards you receive (or have already received) and all the contact information can be quickly and accurately read and saved to your phone. Use the app to exchange contact details with other app users to go paperless, and manage all your contacts on your computer or phone by adding notes, setting reminders, and quickly searching and tagging cards to allow you to better manage your contacts.

Hootsuite for social media

You more than likely want or already have your business on social media platforms—but remembering to regularly update them often gets thrown to the sideline. To be effective in the online world, you have to have consistency, so using software like Hootsuite can help keep you on top of publishing content on your social networks. For free, you can have three accounts set up through Hootsuite, and you can pre-schedule content to go out on your pages days, weeks or even months in advance. Hootsuite isn’t an excuse to completely abandon checking in on your social platforms, but it definitely makes it easier to stay on top of it.

Freshbooks for finances

Freshbooks is a small business accounting software that helps you keep on top of your finances without having to be an accountant. Create personalized and professional invoices, create estimates and quotes for your work, or even send recurring invoices to clients. Import your banking information to allow to easily tracking spending and expense reports, or track time to visualize your progress, or attach to invoices—Freshbooks lets you easily manage your finances all in one place. The software even lets you generate reports that help you visualize profit and loss, payments collected, etc. Managing your finances doesn’t have to be rocket science, so software like Freshbooks can help make it easier so you have time for other things. 

Evernote for organization

Evernote is a cloud storage service that lets you store and access documents and files from any device. Create folders to better organize your digital files, and simply search by keywords to find what you’re looking for. You can even take screen grabs, save information from the web, add team members and collaborators, and develop quick and easy presentations to present your work. Evernote really helps you organize your complicated life all in one place.

Getting in the habit of using some of these tools may be tough, but once you see how they can help you manage your time and keep you organized, you’ll wonder how you ever functioned before.

Do you have a tool that you don’t know what you’d do without? Tweet us at @Futurpreneur.

Written By: Lauren Marinigh, Social Media & Content Creation Coordinator, Futurpreneur Canada

Get up to $60,000
in financial support,
and the support of one
of our 2,400+ mentors.

Learn More →