So, I haven’t blogged in a while and I was thinking of what to write about—then it came to me: I can share a few tools and apps that I’ve recently discovered. Sure, they’ve probably been around for a while, but I’ve only recently began using these little gems and I can only say that they’ve greatly helped my productivity. If you are a graphic designer, web designer, Mac user or even a small business owner, you may find these little tools very useful in your daily work routine.

Freshbooks (online invoicing)

I was previously using an app called MacFreelance to produce professional-looking invoices and estimates. While it was nice and easy to use, I still felt I needed more reporting capability. Now, I know Quickbooks does this probably the best, but I am not a numbers person and wanted something a bit easier to learn. I researched a number of online invoicing companies and settled with Freshbooks. Not only can you invoice, estimate, track time and projects, but you can also set it up to send auto notification emails to clients who are 30, 60 and (god forbid!) 90 days late on payments. There are numerous reports you can run and they even have an iPhone app so you can access your account on the go. Freshbooks offers a free account (for managing 3 clients) and 4 additional plans ranging from $19-$149 per month depending on the number of clients you want to manage.

Evernote

I came across Evernote through a Twitter message. I checked it out and realized that it’s a very useful tool for capturing to-do lists, web pages, whiteboards, snapshots, and handwritten notes. I use it mostly to capture great web sites that I want to be able to come back to later. You can tag your items for easier reference and search. Another great way I use Evernote is to keep a running to-do list to help keep on track with projects. Evernote is available for both Mac and PC and they have an iPhone app so that you can capture notes and items on the go. It even synchronizes your notes between multiple computers and your mobile phone. Evernote offer 2 types of accounts: Free and Premium (500MB monthly upload allowance).

Password1 (Mac password manager)

If you are like me, you probably have hundreds of user profiles and passwords for different web sites, forums and social media platforms. It’s impossible to remember all of this login information but you don’t want to keep it written down either. Enter Password1. Password1 is a Mac-based application that will store your user name and password information of any web site you visit and restore that info in 1-click within your browser window. It uses strong encryption methods to keep your information safe and it can also create strong, unique passwords for you. Password1 offers a free trial download for 30 days or you can purchase a license for $39.95. This little app is definitely worth the $40 bucks just in the time it saves me automatically log me into the sites I access most.

Campaign Monitor (email marketing)

This one should be filed under “why haven’t I used this sooner!” Campaign Monitor is a designers dream: you can create html email templates for your clients, upload them and then give your clients access to edit their template themselves. You can even upload your logo to create your own branded login interface. The signup is free and they charge a flat $5 fee for each campaign and 1 cent per email subscriber you send to. For example, if you wanted to send a new campaign to 100 subscribers, the cost would be $6 ($5 setup + 1 cent per email). This works great if you or your clients are sending to a small list since you are only paying for what you send (vs. a monthly fee of $20-25 for up to 500 emails). I really love the easy-to-use interface and ability to create my own templates where my clients can still edit themselves.

Well, that’s it. I’m sure there are still a lot of great productivity tools out there that I don’t know about, but I at least wanted to share the ones I’ve recently started using. Please leave a comment and let me know if there any great design, productivity or business tools you use.