This clever planner could solve your freelance woes

The number of freelancers is on the rise, and that can only be a good thing (for our advice on taking the plunge, check out The Ultimate Guide to being a Freelance Designer). But there's a problem. However great we designers are at the actual task in hand, we share a number of common struggles: staying organized, prioritising the earning of money, and planning our workload.

A new potential fix for these problems, the Freelancer Planner, is currently funding on Kickstarter. Quite simply, "it's the first planner specifically designed to make freelancers more efficient and profitable," claims founder Michelle Nickolaisen.

"As someone who's been freelancing for years, I've seen these problems send my friends and colleagues diving headfirst into severe burnout and I want to help other freelancers avoid them," she adds.

The planner will come with a guide that walks freelancers through how to get the most from it, while also avoiding common problems such as overestimating client slots on a weekly basis and setting realistic income goals, etc.

"As we move more and more towards a flexible gig-economy that relies on freelancers, it's absolutely crucial that freelancers learn how to be good business owners as well as talented designers (or writers, and so on)," says Nickolaisen, a product designer based in Austin, Texas. "It's my hope that the Freelancer Planner can help with that."

You can back the Kickstarter project here.

Liked this? Read these!

• 10 steps to freelance success
• How to manage your freelance cashflow
• Learn web design from start to finish