Top 5 Best Time-Saving Chrome Extensions for Freelancers

If you're a freelancer, then you know that time is money. The more time you can save, the more money you can make. In the best-case scenario, you’re making more money but spending less time working. And it’s totally possible if you’re smart about optimizing your processes and have the best productivity tools! 

Here are the top five Chrome extensions every freelancer needs. 

Clockify: But First…Track Your Time

Before saving time, you must first track your time to know how much time you’re saving. 

One way to do this is to track your time and identify areas where you can improve your process. For example, how many hours do you take to write an article or design a website?

Sometimes you may think that you're spending only two hours, but when you track it, you're actually spending more than four hours! This is a critical miscalculation, especially if you're charging by the hour.

Clockify is a free Chrome extension that can help you track tasks for single or multiple projects and organize them by clients. It easily lets you track billable and unbillable hours. 

Other Features: 

• It integrates with other task management tools like Notion. 
• It has a beautiful dashboard to get a bird’s eye view of your total daily, weekly, or yearly hours. 
• Separate billable and non-billable hours. 

Once you have identified your total working hours and where you spend most of your time, you can take the necessary actions. Do you spend more time on Canva? Make sure to quote projects hourly the next time you send a proposal.

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Tactiq.io: Real-Time Transcription and Note-Taking Tool

The next Chrome extension on our list will save you tons of time when it comes to your meetings.

If you're a freelancer, you most likely attend all sorts of calls, from onboarding a client to sales calls. And when you're in these meetings, you can't miss anything important, like a client's feedback.

That's why Tactiq is a must-have for freelancers: it provides real-time transcriptions of meetings in Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. 

The transcription is available to download right after the call, along with your notes and screenshots.

It also: 

• Allows you to highlight any sentence, so you don't have to write anything down.
• Easily integrates with the tools you're already using, such as Google Drive, Slack, and Notion.
• View all of your call transcripts in one place.

The next on our list is a great tool to skip meetings!

Loom: Save Time with Asynchronous Screensharing

Not all meetings need to be synchronous, like a Zoom call. You can easily solve some issues with a quick Loom video.

Loom is a Chrome extension that lets you record your screen and share it with anyone.

It's perfect for:

• Recording technical issues
• Providing feedback on an article or design
• Onboarding videos showing a step-by-step process

You can get a ton of value from its free version if you record videos for less than five minutes. And you can always upgrade to a paid version if you need to store more videos and record longer videos. 

Now, once you’ve saved all those times when you skip a meeting, you can have more time for research and inspiration. 

Notion Web Clipper: Organize Articles and Swipe Files

Have you ever been browsing the internet and found an article you want to read but don't have the time?

With Notion Web Clipper, you can save that article for later. Notion Web Clipper is a free browser extension that lets you save any link from the web and organizes them in your Notion pages.

It's great for saving:

• LinkedIn posts that you found helpful.
• Examples of great designs or advertisements.
• Courses that you want to take at a later time.

If you're a marketer or designer, you can create a swipe file where you can see all of the inspiring ideas you've seen. It can spark new ideas, and you won't have to spend so much time brainstorming.

If you're not using Notion, a good alternative is Pocket. You can also save links to read later with this Chrome extension.

What's great about Pocket is that you can use it offline, save articles on the go, and read them even if you're not connected to the internet.

Honey: Save Time and Save Money

If you're a freelancer, you also need to save money on your tools and services.

Honey is a free browser extension that helps you do just that. It automatically applies coupon codes at checkout when you're shopping online.

It also:

• Finds the best deals on Amazon and other sites.
• Tracks prices on Amazon so you know when to buy an item.
• Earn rewards while you do your usual shopping. 

When you’re a freelancer, a little bit goes a long way. Those small savings end up big eventually! And Honey saves you a lot of time from combing through Google for the best deals.

What to Do With the Time You’ve Saved?

There you have it, the top five Chrome extensions that can help save you time as a freelancer. 

Use an automatic time tracker like MindHero to know where you spend your time. Use real-time transcripts and optimize your note-taking during calls with Tactiq. Or you can skip some meetings and use a screen-sharing tool like Loom. Save articles with Notion Web Clipper and save money with Honey. 

Now that you have all the extra time and money, you can devote time to your hobby or other areas of your freelancing business!