Built myself a little command center for my freelance work this week. It’s called Bench.
Contra handles the contracts and payments, but my day-to-day was scattered across Contra chats, Gmail, my calendar, Notion, and a notes app. So I pulled it all into one place:
• A dashboard showing what needs me today: unread messages, overdue tasks, past-due invoices, leads that have gone quiet
• Each project gets its own page with scope, deliveries, tasks, links, and the full message thread from Contra and email
• A pipeline for leads, including a “Ghosted” column, because we’ve all been there
• A time tracker for the hourly stuff
• It syncs with my Contra projects and invoices every morning
Curious how other freelancers here keep track of everything. Spreadsheets? Notion? Pure chaos?
Happy Monday! Exploring early concept marks for a regional IT brand wanting to bridge modern IT services with Appalachian heritage.
Out of 10 sketches, my circle split right down the middle on these two:
A: The Ridge Monogram holds a bold silhouette where the "E" acts as the bedrock of the mountain ridge. It became a fast favorite with non-designer friends.
B: The Topo-Circuit idea plants a dynamic mark pairing circuit traces with elevation contours that can adapt to different locations as the business expands. (My personal pick!)