Some may ask, “What tools are most essential to your editing business?”

Honestly, I have too many to list in one blog post, so I picked five. This list is in no particular order. If you are starting an editing business, you may wish to look into obtaining each of these.

• A laptop computer dedicated to my editing and my business functions. I certainly don’t want to get important files on which I am working mixed up with other people’s files. The awful truth is that for my first two years as a freelance editor, I shared a desktop computer with my husband. Although it was not often that he and I wanted to use it at the same time, it was not a good setup. I am ashamed to admit that I got my laptop only during the COVID-19 pandemic, when my husband had to work from home.

• A Dropbox account. Any cloud storage would have sufficed, but I prefer Dropbox. Another shameful thing I must admit is that for the first year of my freelancing, I saved all of my work on USB drives. *cringe*

• Toggl, the timekeeping system, and a website that converts time in hours:minutes:seconds to decimal hours. My use of Toggl is very basic; I use the timer to clock my working time. Performing an internet search will give you a choice of time-to-decimal converters. You can also convert time to decimal hours with Excel. But you can’t get paid without knowing how many hours you worked!

• My daily planner, courtesy of At-A-Glance, on which I plan which days I am going to work on what. Some people prefer planners that are computer software, but when it comes to scheduling, I am from the old school.

• The bank accounts and credit card which are dedicated to my business. It is very important to keep business money separate from personal finances. It makes things much easier at tax time—not to mention in general.

If you are a freelancer, what are some of the tools you deem absolutely essential?