HACKER Q&A
📣 carterharrison

Freelancers, do you have the same problem?


I have 10+ Slacks, Microsoft Teams, and Workplace groups. Am apart of Trellos, Airtables, and Jira boards. And use dozens of design/wireframe tools. The list goes on forever. Not to mention these are all spread across multiple different email addresses, and projects.

Every client of mine uses different communication, design, and project management tools. I spend so much time switching between accounts, and figuring out where the hell everything is.

Do you have the same problem, if so, how do you cope with it?

  👤 user_agent Accepted Answer ✓
What works for me: it's not a problem with tools, but with tactics of communication. Make one person from every company you work with responsible with keeping you in the loop (that doesn't mean to CC you on every mail) and answering your calls when you have doubts; only those two things - not asking for much, right? Make wrap-ups often. Don't read Slack BS, jizz. It's neither pleasant nor valuable. One can spend an entire life in an endless loop of "communication". Slack isn't communication. Real comms has to do with: agreements, negotiation, partnerships (even if temporary ones), taking responsibility. That last one might be the most important one.

And don't attend meetings that aren't absolutely mandatory for you.

Make someone else from the companies you work with to mark your progress on their internal systems however they like to use them, purely based on your to-the-point (calls, mails) communication.

With that approach you can take 5 more customers ;) All of the above sounds kinda crazy, but it's been tested in the battlefield for more than 10 years. Being as pissed as you are, @Op, is the best time to make those changes. Howk!

PS: If someone from you costomers' side isn't OK with that approach - fire the bullshitter. Take one that is going to comply. World is full of morons doing mostly virtue signaling, endless meetings, etc, instead of getting to the point.

👤 pmontra
The basics are: I have a virtual desktop per customer (Ubuntu Gnome), one Firefox window per desktop and I use container tabs to be able to log multiple times in the same service with different accounts. One emacs window per desktop, one terminal per desktop, etc. I use a password manager and I keep a desktop for me (email, WhatsApp web, telegram.) Unfortunately the Slack desktop app can't be split in multiple windows. I have to move it among desktops.
👤 mrassili
I would love to know what you folks are using, any tool your recommend?