For Freelancers: 6 Planner Pages to Keep You Organized

Freelancers wear a lot of hats. They’re social media creators and content developers. They’re accountants and the whole marketing department. They’re project managers and customer service agents. As a freelancer myself, switching in and out of so many hats, or wearing them all at once, can be overwhelming. Often, just the simple act of writing things down helps me streamline my workflows and reign in my brain. Here are 6 Golden Coil pages to help find your freelancer flow. 

Project Planning

The project planning page lessens the mental load of any project and keeps you organized from beginning to end. There are three spreads, but I like spread 3 which comes complete with a timeline, deliverables outline, to-do list and administrative checklist with things like “rates sent” and “contract signed”. 

Meeting Notes

So help me if I'm in a meeting without a notebook. “I’ll remember that” is my dishonest, if not delusional, refrain. More often than not, I don’t remember, and then kick myself for not writing down whatever critical information I’ve forgotten. Always keep your meeting notes page open and spare yourself having to sheepishly go back to a client.  

Social Media Planner

At the top of the month, I commit to posting daily and have all of the posts planned out in my mind. But, of course, I get distracted and come the end of the month, I hastily make one post and promise to do better next time. Make a plan and stick to it with ‘Social Media Planner 2’. The individual blocks coupled with the checklists (draft, schedule, post) will activate both the left side and right side of your brain.  

Year-at-a-Glance

Client boundaries aren’t my strength and I’ve been guilty of agreeing to projects that have overlapped with family holidays or taking on new work during periods I’d told myself I was pressing pause. My natural instinct is to say yes and the year-at-a-glance offers a very visual reminder of what’s happening and when, making it easier for a yes-person like me to clearly designate periods of work and periods of rest and literally see how much I have taken on and how much capacity I have. 

Finances

I don’t love thinking about money, but I do like checking things off a list. If you need a nudge to keep better track, check out the ‘Finances’ page. It will help you manage who needs to pay you, how much, and when. It’s a win-win: you get a boost to your bank account and the gratification of marking something from to-do to done!

Reminders

Before I put my credit cards on auto-pay, I was always late with my payments. The ‘Reminders’ spread is like autopay for all of the recurring things in your freelancing world, be it a monthly note to invoice clients, send out a newsletter and annual note to file your taxes!

We’d love to hear from other freelancers out there, what are your go-to Golden Coil layouts?!