As a WordPress web designer, you’re one of the few people who can help business owners launch their websites where they can implement small business inbound marketing strategies effectively. Thus, you are in a unique and privileged position to command a high market price for your services.

At the same time, the demand for competent web designers is at an all-time high. More and more businesses are transitioning online and want a professional-looking website to get things started.

If you’re fortunate enough to have clients to build websites for, you’ll find yourself juggling multiple clients and projects at the same time. While this is a good problem to have, delivering on your promise of designing professional-looking websites for each of them is another matter altogether. It’s easy to get sidetracked or miss on certain details of a project with so much on your plate.

To help manage the different projects you have in a timely and organized manner, below are productivity tools at your disposal. You don’t have to use them all—choose only those that will help you get more things done in less time.

ClickUp

A project management tool is critical in helping you organize the tasks and keep track of the deadline of each. You can use such a tool even if you’re flying solo or working with a team of designers and developers.

As one of the best project management tools out there, ClickUp is a freemium solution that will improve your productivity in no time. You can create spaces for each of your projects. When it comes to task management, you can add members assigned to work on each task of the project that you can view similar to a Kanban board. From each task card, you can leave and reply to comments, set a deadline, or track the time you spent working on it for billing purposes. 

Let’s face it: each WordPress site requires different specs depending on the type you’re building, whether it’s a business or dropshipping website. Using ClickUp, you can break down projects into bits and pieces of tasks no matter how big or insurmountable they seem. You and your team can then accomplish quickly on your way to completing the projects in their entirety.

Once you’re done on each task, you can move them to the Done column along with other tasks you completed.

As mentioned, ClickUp is free for use and gives you access to the features above. If you want greater storage, better reporting features, guest visibility, and others, you must upgrade your account.

peopleHum

Assembling a team of reliable people to help you work on your projects is a great way to finish the projects on time without feeling worn out afterward. 

And we’re not just talking here of designers. Due to the great work you’ve been doing for them, clients may depend on you to help them find people who can do entry-level marketing jobs for them. While this may be outside of your scope, take their trust and confidence in you as a challenge to level up your skills and get a better salary out of it.

However, managing a team presents new issues to deal with, and one of them is to keep them engaged at all times. After all, happy employees are the key to increased productivity and better output.

Among the different employee engagement software, peopleHum lets you celebrate wins big or small with your coworkers. It lets them know that their work is appreciated and encourages them to continue doing a great job on all projects.

Another cool feature of peopleHum is the ability to post messages in group chat anonymously. This way, everybody can voice out their concerns honestly without having to worry about the repercussions.

These features help lift the spirits of your employees and sustain their productivity over time.

Invision

Back then, working with designers required you to complete your design first before handing the work to the next person. The problem with this workflow is that people will be waiting for the designer to complete their work before it’s their turn to implement their design ideas on the project.

With Invision, you don’t have to worry about falling in line to wait until it’s your turn to design. The app allows you to collaborate with designers in real-time. First, start with a blank canvas or choose a template that your team will use as a foundation for the design work. Next, design the interactive prototype for your client’s website or app together with other designers. You can also involve developers in the process for their inputs on how to proceed with the design. 

Invision is primarily a desktop app but you can also run it on mobile so you can capture design inspirations into the app so you won’t lose them.

CodeKit

For Mac users, CodeKit provides you with all the web development tools you’ll need to design a beautiful website for your clients. First, it possesses all the programming languages you need to use for creating frontends and backends. Also, the browsers refreshes and sync browsers across different devices for faster cross-device testing without the hassle.

Finally, WordPress websites are notoriously slow if you don’t configure their settings properly. Using CodeKit, you can optimize the site right out of the box without depending on plugins that only bloat the site and prevent it from loading fast. Bundle JavaScript, remove unused CSS, and cache-bust scripts, among other things, to ensure that the site runs smoothly.

Using CodeKit allows you to have everything at your disposal in a single app. It helps speed up the process of developing sites for clients.

CodePen

If you’re looking to brainstorm for design ideas and inspirations or are looking for validation from seasoned front-end designers and developers, CodePen is the place to be.

As a testing platform, its customizable Editor helps autocomplete your code and allows you to create custom settings for every time you start a new project or “pen.” Once you’ve completed a pen, decide whether to embed your pen or hide them from the public and only for private viewing. CodePen also has the option to host your images for your pens if necessary.

The great thing about CodePen as a productivity tool is the Collab Mode. Similar to Invision, you can work on a pen together not only with your team members but also with users of the site. This way, you can get help from capable designers and developers with your projects.

Slack

Rounding up the list is Slack, arguably one of the best team messengers out there. Unlike most messenger apps, Slack allows you to organize your products into different workspaces, which represents the companies you’re working for. Each workspace will show you the exclusive members of the organization. This way, you won’t mix up your messages with other people from separate companies.

Inside each workspace are the projects you have for it. Within it, you can create different channels where you can invite certain members to discuss specific aspects of the project. You can even include non-designers into the mix to help build the best websites for your clients. For example, since you’re responsible for making the site look beautiful and professional, someone else in your team will be responsible for WordPress security and ensure that it will be safe from malware and malicious attackers.

From here, you can communicate in real-time what design projects and tasks need to be done so you all can finish the job on time.

More importantly, you can integrate different apps on Slack to improve your workflow and productivity. It can seamlessly work alongside a host of project management tools and productivity suites so you can manage everything in your web design business from a single platform. This allows you and your team to work together in achieving the same goals more efficiently.

Conclusion

The tools above should help you get the most out of your processes and workflows as a website designer. But tools are only just that—they won’t help you become productive and efficient with a few clicks of a button. 

Productivity comes from your desire to maximize the time you have during the day and do the best job possible. So, if you don’t practice the best productivity tips as a designer, then these tools won’t get you anywhere.

Once you have a fully working system in place, you’ll be able to get the most out of your career as a WordPress designer with these tools at your disposal.