5 Free Time-Management Tools for Entrepreneurs

Life as an entrepreneur might seem glamorous to the outside observer: building something from the ground up, attending networking events, being your own boss, and setting your own hours. As any entrepreneur knows, however, the early years are anything but glamorous. They’re full of sleepless nights, crushing insecurity, and too many cups of coffee. Building a business is challenging and time-consuming work, and it’s often very isolating. Most entrepreneurs start out working by themselves, and have to do everything, from the bookkeeping to the marketing. No one is good at everything, and tough tasks can sometimes be overwhelming or waste precious time. The good news? There are so many great online tools available to entrepreneurs these days—tools that can help with time management and make getting enough sleep a little bit easier.

If you’re an entrepreneur, check out these 5 free time management tools to help you stay sane!

1. Toggl

If you’re like most people, you waste a lot more time than you think you do. Unfortunately, that’s difficult to quantify unless you have the cold, hard data in front of you. Toggl can give you that. Toggl is a time-management tool with a very simple premise: tracking your tasks. It’s super easy to use, and you can track individual tasks with the click of a button, pause and come back to projects, and see how long you’ve worked on each one throughout the day. Different features allow you to tag different projects and clients, and you’ll get a weekly summary of your tracked tasks every week. It’s a must for anyone who gets motivated by the ticking clock. Need evidence you’re working too much? Ask Toggl!

2. Trello

Trello is an extremely powerful project management system, thanks to its overall simplicity. You can create “cards” for different projects, and organize them in lists. These lists are contained on boards, giving you the flexibility to separate and organize all your tasks. You can drag and drop these cards to different lists, set due dates, add attachments and notes, and assign other Trello members to specific cards. This is a great tool for entrepreneurs who have several projects in the works, or who work with multiple freelancers. Everything can be tracked in one place, and the software can be integrated with other tools!

3. Remember the Milk

An interactive to-do list you can access from anywhere, Remember the Milk is perfect for overwhelmed entrepreneurs. Have a meeting scheduled with a potential investor? Need to create an assessment for your social media followers? Need to pick up your dry cleaning? Set a reminder! You can even share your lists and tasks with others, making it easy to streamline your workflows.

4. Calendly

So, most entrepreneurs know about Google calendar, which is a powerful free tool for scheduling out your days. Calendly however, takes Google (GOOG) calendar to the next level. If you routinely schedule meetings, Calendly can integrate with your Google calendar and allow you to set the times you are available to schedule a meeting. There’s no more emailing back and forth to find a time that works—instead, people can schedule a block of time your calendar already shows as free, and you’ll get a notification!

5. Pomodorium

Time management doesn’t have to be a chore—turn it into a game with Pomodorium! This tool takes the popular “Pomodoro” productivity model (25 minute blocks of work, with 5 minute breaks in between) and gamifies it. Every time you successfully complete a Pomodoro, you win “gold” in the game that can be used for upgrades—and you can play it in your downtime.

Launch Faster, Launch Better, Grow More

Whether you’re looking toward your launch, or you’re ready to start growing faster and build your initial team, these free resources are perfect for entrepreneurs. Getting organized and staying productive are key for any entrepreneur in every stage of building a business, which can be a major challenge when you’re working for yourself. By finding tools that work for you, you can help your company launch and take of faster. These five are just the beginning—there are so many great tools out there. Best of all? You won’t be wasting cash on fancy software when you should be focusing on building your business.