Blank Project Management Templates Saving Time! Saving Money: Fill & Download for Free

There’ve been quite a few helpful answers already, but as the inventor of a smart grid ruler that makes Bullet Journaling easier and more fun, I feel like I should chime in on this so you can learn from my beginner’s blunders (and whoo boy, did I make some doozies!).In the interest of time and money, if I had to boil down my must-haves to only my top 3, here’s what they’d be:1. A notebook with quality paper.Whether you like lined, grid, dot grid, pre-numbered, or blank sheets; field guide, A5 8“ x 5.5”; or Letter 11” x 8.5” size; 50, 180, or 250 pages for your BuJo (Bullet Journal); I highly recommend not skimping on the paper QUALITY.I learned (the hard way) how frustrating it is to fill a whole page, flip it over, and not be able use the other side because the sheet is thin enough to see what you just wrote. Which is why many Bullet Journal enthusiasts recommend Leuchtturm1917, Moleskine, Rhodia, Midori and other brands of notebooks with good paper - because the only other option would be to paste a piece of paper over the 2nd side before using it. (Which, unless you like to tote around a glue stick, isn’t easy to do when you’re in transit. It also makes your cheap notebook more of a hassle than an easy-to-use tool.)Need more reasons? An expensive pen can’t make up for cheap paper. Poor-quality paper rarely holds up to much erasing or abuse. I’ve also found stickers, glue, and sticky notes typically don’t stick to cheap paper very well.So, do you have to buy a $20 notebook? The short answer is - No. I’ve found notebooks as cheap as $5 with decent paper (craft, book, and outlet stores are great places to look for them). However, you’ll want to do your own testing, which brings me to #2…2. A pen that writes smoothly, dries quickly, and doesn’t bleed through.Another super colossal annoyance of mine? Dragging my hand over freshly-written text or lines and smearing it. Or, worse yet, trying to draw or write, but finding the pen and paper completely incompatible - the ink skips, you need to press down hard to get the ink to show, it doesn’t write much at all, the ink color is too light or too dark, etc. And even if you use quality paper, some inks still bleed through practically anything (I’m looking at you, permanent markers and dye inks…).To help decide which pen(s) you like best, test them on a page in the back of your notebook. If you label each test with the brand/name/model of the pen and a short sentence regarding how the pen-to-paper feels to you, you’ll be able to refer back to it when you can’t remember why you’re not using a particular pen and were wondering if you should try it … [ yeah, no, I’ll never admit to gapping out and forgetting something like that…. ;) ]From purely an ‘essential’ view, if you find the right pen you technically don’t need any other writing utensils (although the artist in me loves me some rainbows). This is especially true if you don’t have to pre-sketch your grid layouts in pencil before tracing over them in pen (making two passes over the same marks). It’s easy to avoid double the work if you have …3. A small (smarter) ruler.Some, but not many, BuJo enthusiasts recommend a ruler as an essential Bullet Journaling tool.Maybe it’s because, like me, they find it isn’t useful for anything other than being a straightedge (ironic, for a tool meant for measuring)?Imagine this: You’re baking a cake. The recipe calls for a cup of flour, but the only measuring tool you have is a teaspoon.Or how about this: You need to pound in a nail. All you have is a screwdriver.Now picture this scenario: You’re trying to make evenly-spaced rows and columns on a sheet of paper printed with a grid laid out in 5mm increments - using a ruler that measures in inches and centimeters.Can you bake that cake using only a teaspoon? Pound in a nail with a screwdriver? Measure Pinterest-perfect evenly-spaced rows and columns with a regular ruler? Sure you can. Inconvenient tools won’t stop you from accomplishing a task, but they can make it take a lot of extra time and effort.“Make it Better” and “Question Everything” are running themes in my life, so I thought - since I’m using paper that uses measurements in 5mm increments, why am I not using a ruler that measures in millimeters? Even better, why not have it show me a visual representation of breaking up the page into halves, thirds, quarters, fifths, and more? I could use it like a stencil to make two sets of marks on the page and then draw lines between them with one pass. Best of all, I’d have a template to show me my options instantly rather than wasting hours measuring and calculating every layout! (I mean, a BuJo is for SAVING time, not wasting it, right?)I figured someone else must have come up with something, but I couldn’t find anything as cost-effective or simple as I wanted it to be. So I got to work and made it myself. (You can make something similar by creating your own grid spacing cheat sheet, but if you’re interested, I wrote more about the invention process on my blog. Inventing The Grid Tool | Lifehacklets)I tuck it inside an envelope glued to the inside cover of my BuJo or stick it between the pages to act as a bookmark.It’s handy for making grids, trackers, and layouts on-the-fly (did I mention I’m a project management and quantified-self geek?) and for creating regular Monthlies, Weeklies, and Dailies. Because I’m human (read: not perfect), I sometimes forget things, so having a portable smart ruler to help me out while I’m on-the-go has saved me from stressing about planning ahead in my BuJo. That peace-of-mind alone makes it my #3 essential BuJo tool.What about X, Y, or Z?Although my list of must-haves is austere, I’m not a complete minimalist. In fact, I use color in my BuJo all the time. I also use many other handy tools - washi tape, markers, stencils, stickers, ribbon bookmarks, date stamps, etc. (you can see some of my favorites in the photo, above). But my top three are the must-haves I ALWAYS throw in my bag when I exit my abode.

Hi Erin, I hope you'll find the tools below useful for your non-profit organisation.When you're trying to make the world a better place you need people but also resources to help you getting things done. You’ll be saving a good chunck of money when using these tools/apps.Team Collaboration and CommunicationIt is paramount to have great tools to communicate and/or working with your team. Whether you collaborate with your own team, board members, or volunteers, and/or thrird-party partners in different locations or countries you need these:G-Suite for Non-Profits: With G-suite you get access to all business features (email, shared calendars and documents,G-Drive (storage): worksheets, docs and presentations all for free.Zoom: is a video sharing communication tool that allows you to invite users to a video conference, that from anywhere around the world. You can create and sign in [free] with gmail. You've unlimited 1-1 video conferencing, but limited to 40 minutes video conf. for small groups.Bonus: includes notification, google calendar, screen share, a chat feature and a record feature.Creating Visual ContentBeFunky: It is a cool photo editor and collage maker tool. Free and easy to use, it has plenty of features (almost professional on basic version!) I recommend it too.Lumen5: You get a pro video and editing software to create professional looking videos. Just pick your own theme/content and they'll guide you through the all process of video creation.Pixabay: A moment or another you’ll need pro stock images. Pixabay provides an extensive and fantastic database of royalty-free images you can download.Piktochart: is an online app infographics builder. So easy to use, you select your already made template category or start from scratch by simply drag and drop icons, graphics into the blank template. You can use the free plan, but you can easily swicth to an Nonprofit plan. Only $39.99/year for the premium version.Content Marketing/ SEO ToolsYou'll need to create, write or rewrite, edit, optimise, re-optimise and promote your best content more than once so these below will do just that for free:Grammarly: is among the best tools out there. A top free writing app to make sure your messages, documents, and social media posts are all mistake-free. It is like having an in-house editor. You’ll wonder for sure, “how you’ve survived without it”.Answer the Public: another favorite. Fast and free visual keyword research app (with a bold guy on the homepage waiting for you to type in something) that will help you identify questions people are asking, so you don’t have to. You’ll build content quickly around those keyphrases. Try typing in a keyword and scroll down to see the visual or charts which show you the related questions.CoSchedule Headline Analyzer: Sometimes you have one chance to grab your potential donor, but how do you make sure your email headline is compelling enough to get them to click. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer has your back.Moz's Keyword Explorer: Great to create, tie keyword research together and track metrics. They offer a huge 75% off Pro discounts - all you have to do is send/present them the 501c. Check it here >> :) Moz Pro Discounts for Non-Profits - help HubMailchimp: among the most user-friendly email service provider systems out there. They also provide beautiful and professionally designed email templates. Note that your free plan allows you to contact up to 2,000 subscribers and send up to 12,000 emails per month. If you need more after that, ( I believe) Mailchimp offers Non-profits a 15% percent discount and a 10% when you add two-factor authentication to your MailChimp account.Screamingfrog - This SEO Spider is a must have and it's free. If you require to crawl more than 500 URL's and/or have access to advanced features contact Dan to get your preferential license rate and (I am sure) he will help you out. PricingHubspot topic generator: Sometimes you need quick topic ideas to challenge you, right. To get things rolling you just add five words or nouns/ sentences and based on those you entered, HubSpot Blog Topic Generator will suggest you five different headings.Project ManagementAsana: is a good project and team management tool. If you contact them they will be open to discussion and possibly give you free to all features against a link mention on your site. Basicly free for up to 15 people with some limitations.Slack: is a team collaboration texting platform. You can either invite team members, organise work and chats, but also invite board and volunteers to channels (like a channel for volunteers, and one for the board, etc). It’s free for up to 10,000 messages, after that, you can negotiate or remain free by deleting old messages as it is limited to 10,000.Trello: You can use Trello templates to collaborate, communicate all of your projects in real time.Wunderlist: Wunderlist is your digital to-do list. Sort lists by categories and even invite people for shared to-dos.Promoting and Building a CommunityCreate and get your message out there in a quick, savvy and compelling way with:Buffer: is free for one account allowing you to connect up to three social platforms. Simply schedule your social media posts across Fb, Twitter and LinkedIn. With free version they offer you some useful analytics to help you see what’s working and what’s not.HootSuite: Similar to Buffer in many ways - you get to schedule your tweets, monitor accounts, hashtag keywords, and create lists of people to engage and/or retweet influencers, community at later stage.YouTube Nonprofit Program: Offers a unique nonprofit program - they'll support and give you the tools needed to create short compelling videos. Super marketing tool allowing you to share your message AND provide people with donations cards alongside videos ( Great when you roll-out your donation campaigns).Put Social to Work: will allow you to see social media info of the people you email. This is great to quickly connect with your donors, fans, influencers, all across multiple channels.Other that can’t be ignoredGoogle Analytics: You need to know which part of your content is not performing. As time is money you need to quickly analyse and extract part of your content in order to improve it. But the only way to do that is to measure what works and what doesn’t, right? G.A is the best free marketing tool out there. It has improved lots. Use it to set your campaign metrics but also helping you make strategic decisions as to where you should be spending time and dollars.Talkwalker Alerts: allows you to monitor your brand name, other industry leaders, and any keyword topics your competitors are using. Monitoring is vital for your brand and Talkwaker alerts makes it so easy. The best of all it’s FREE.ClearView CRM: Constituent Relationship ManagementBloomerang: Donor database managementDonorSearch: Wealth screeningDonorPerfect: Fundraising Growth platformGoogle Grants: Google offers nonprofits $10,000 in Adwords advertising each monthQgiv: Bespoke online fundraising tool with manyuseful features - Nonprofit Online Fundraising Tools - Managed on One PlatformHope this will help you :)

Wouldn’t you love to spend less time while accomplishing more? Tools offer us that luxury. Take advantage of the rapid rise of time-saving tools and use them. This post will recommend time-saving tools in the following areas:CollaborationGraphic DesignHeadline WritingEmail MarketingSEOVideo MarketingCollaborationProofHubA popular collaboration tool, ProofHub, is one place for all your projects, teams, and communications. With features like Proofing, Gantt chart, Announcements, Request forms, White-labeling, Workflows and boards, Multiple timers, Task management, File management, and many more, teams can have ultimate control over their projects. You can keep everything organized in one central place rather than long email threads.Use ProofHub to keep a tab on who is doing what, to know how much each team member is working and what they are producing. The team will always know what’s going on, what’s overdue, what are the milestones, and what are the deadlines. Check on progress and measure workflows anytime and anywhere. ProofHub is loved by 85,000+ teams and businesses worldwide making project management and collaboration extremely easy.EvernoteThis note-taking app is so popular the tool makers started charging to have Evernote on more than two devices. As a result, if you have a budget for helpful tools, Evernote can be used on all your devices so you can access your notes wherever you are.Evernote uses the elephant as its symbol. People say elephants never forget. According to the app developers, you won’t ever forget any tasks you need to complete with this app.With Evernote, you can create individual notes or specific notebooks. The app’s functions include collecting your notes, tasks, checklists, articles, and pictures. If you have trouble finding any of your data, quickly find what you need using the search function.Evernote is easy to use and for even further ease you can store your data using Evernote’s browser extension. Since your data syncs to the Cloud, it’s literally impossible to ever lose your data with this handy tool.Pricing: The free plan allows you to use Evernote on two devices. The paid plan enables you to share notes with clients or colleagues. You can even use Evernote for personal needs. Need an item from the store but don’t have time to pick it up? Use Evernote to share your grocery lists.Google DocsI can not rave enough about Google Docs. Google has 4 types of documents that you can seamlessly use for collaboration with clients or coworkers: docs, slides, sheets, and forms.You can pick a blank template or choose from any number of the many templates Google offers. Their templates include resumes, brochures, and project proposals.Use Google Docs to collaborate with your clients or coworkers on advertising copy. One of the perks of Goole Docs is your ability to dictate your documents and then translate them. Then share them with your clients.As you can see, language barriers won’t stop you from fully utilizing Google Docs. You can easily and quickly provide and receive feedback by typing in your ideas in the margins.Even after you collaborate, Google Docs shows you a summary of your collaboration. For example, Google Docs shows you which ideas were shared by whom if they were accepted or rejected.Google’s tool actually just got better. The only negative aspect I ever saw was its inability to work with Grammarly, an online grammar checker. Google Docs is in the process of testing Grammarly.Google FormsGoogle Forms is one of the four types of Google Docs. You can use Google Forms for a variety of purposes. For example, you can use Google forms to survey your readers. User-Generated Content (UGC) is trendy now in business to consumer advertising (B2C). If your clientele wants to see certain content from you, you should provide it. B2C is all about solution marketing. How do you know what solutions they need without surveying your email list?Google Forms provides the perfect vehicle to ask your list members for feedback. You can use Google Forms to ask your clients to register for events or provide their contact information. These are just two of the many uses for Google Forms. Use the form to follow-up after marketing your products or services.Surveying your clients after you work with them has several purposes. First, you maintain the connection. Should they need you again, you’ll be fresh in their minds. Next, if they provide feedback that your work was disappointing, the form provides a place for them to write in feedback.You can send the form as an attachment or as a link. If they fail to respond, Google Forms allows you to send a follow-up form as a reminder. The tool tells you who still needs to respond so you can send the form again.You can even customize your form’s theme to match your website colors. You can change the font style and even put a logo or picture at the top. Google Forms is my go-to tool when I need to survey readers and clients.Google SlidesAre you familiar with Microsoft PowerPoint? PowerPoint comes in a suite of tools, an expensive collection. Good news: Google lets you use its tools for free! This includes the handy Google Slides.Google Slides has the same benefits as Google’s other tools with one important added function: You use Google Slides to make a slideshow presentation. If you’re presenting for clients, impress them with a slide show. You can choose from predesigned templates or design your own.Put in images, text, charts, graphs, whatever you need to show. Do you want to know the most exciting feature of Google Slides? The animation! It’s true! You can animate your elements. Have your titles fly in from all directions or spin around. Creativity knows no bounds with Google Slides.I recently presented at a conference and showed a slideshow using the easy-to-use Google Slides. Would I use it again? Absolutely! Google Slides is my Number 1 choice for slide show presentations and should be yours as well.Intellameet Video Conferencing ToolYou need a video conferencing tool in order to enhance your credibility. If people are going to trust you with their business, they want to see what you look like. Although there are other options on the market, I recommend the Intellameet’s tool.The Intellameet conferencing tool is different from other video conferencing tools sinceIntellameet has many necessary functions for marketers that other video conferencing tools don’t provide.For example, it is used for collaboration as well as video conferencing. In fact, it records a transcript of your conversations so you can easily see the topics your meeting focused on.Are you planning on organizing a webinar? Use Intellameet. This versatile tool actually organizes webinars and other meetings. Intellameet even emails the attendees reminders.In addition, Intellameet comes with a virtual whiteboard where you can use arrows and other symbols to diagram what you’re explaining. Your meetings will go smoother thanks to these helpful features.Intellameet is easy-to-use. No downloading is necessary. Just click to start the meeting. I should know. I participated in a video conference using Intellameet. Easy!Actually, Intellameet uses Google Docs. The developers incorporated it into their design. Therefore, if you and your clients are already familiar with Google Docs, you will love this tool since you are already familiar with the platform.Graphic Design ToolFotorFotor is a powerful graphic design software and photo editing tool, which has enough templates to meet any graphic design need and finish your graphic design portfolio in a few clicks. It has been used by over 300 million people worldwide and was highly appraised by other sites. so it is plain to see what all these people find so appealing.It has enough templates to please even your hardest-to-please followers. For example, there are templates for social media graphics, collages, posters, logos, tickets, gift certificates and more. Fotor even has menu, resume and letterhead templates! Clearly, this is an all-purpose, all-occasion tool. Whether you are a social media marketer, a retailer, or blogger, you can find exactly you need and make your own graphic design blogs in minutes.Holiday MarketingDecember is always the biggest shopping period of the year. Marketers have many graphic design needs Fotor can fill all-year round. For instance, Fotor can help when it comes to templates for Christmas graphic design. You can make your graphics the size of a poster. Think of the foot-traffic you’ll receive when shoppers view your stunning poster. This translates into big sales for you.With Fotor’s banner generator and vast free banner templates selection, you’re able to update your banner ads frequently. With eye-catching banner ads like these, your retail business is sure to profit.Social Media ToolAre you aware that the current trend in B2C marketing is bonding with your followers through social media connections? Fotor should be your only choice for social media posts. Due to the wide array of template choices, you can update your social media posts frequently, to make connections with your email list members. Use Fotor’s social media tools to advertise your social media marketing plans.Are you worried about looking “canned?” There’s no need to worry about needing to reinvent yourself online to get attention. Fotor reinvents your brand for you. The Fotor company is always increasing the selection of these stunning templates so your look will never appear old to your followers.By the way, if you just start your business and haven’t got a great idea for your brand logo design, Fotor also collects a bunch of excellent designs for your selection because Fotor also is a logo creator. You can easily personalize them with various resources and stand out from the crowd on social media sites.Click this Photo Edit the LogoPersonal NeedsYou can use Fotor to wish your friends and family warm holiday greetings. Are you planning a holiday party for friends and family? Don’t forget about using Fotor’s creative invitation templates. Whatever your graphic design needs, you’ll find solutions at Fotor.Click this Photo Edit the CardNimbusNimbus is my preferred choice for screen capture. It should be yours as well. Nimbus is a versatile tool for many reasons. For example, I can save any part of my screen, or, if preferred, I can save the whole screen.Can you tell I edited the screenshot? I cropped out the part I didn’t want and put a red box over the part of the screenshot I want to feature. The palette contains many colors and all sorts of shapes.As you can see from the screenshot, I can send my screenshot to my Google Drive and get a shareable link. In addition, I can save as an image and insert into my blog content. These are just a few of the options I have. If you send your Nimbus screenshots anywhere on the Internet like Dropbox or Google, you’ll always have access to them.Headline ToolHookLineDynamicResearch on the best headlines show the most “clickable” headlines have a balance of 4-types of words: common, uncommon, emotional, and power. By having words in your headlines that fit those categories, you increase the probability people will click your headlines and bring traffic to your content. Michelle Shaeffer’s tool, HookLineDynamic, operates on this principle.She calls her tool “HookLineDynamic” since she hooks your reader for you. In this way, she increases your open rates. This headline tool scores the types of words in your headline. The tool then tells you how you can improve the words to increase the odds that people will click your headlines.Hook Line Dynamic doesn’t just help you with headlines either. You can use Hook Line Dynamic to get people to open your emails as well as click on your website headlines. In addition, the tool helps you write sales funnel headlines and Facebook Ad-lines.Let’s say I put in a headline I’m considering using for an upcoming article “How to make money with online jobs.” As you see from the screenshot, words populated under various words in my headline. These are suggestions that may improve my headline score. When you’re done scanning, you even receive a mini report.Look at mine: You can see that HookLineDynamic complimented my type of blog post title: The tool complimented me for having a “How to.” I considered changing my headline to “How to Make More Money with Online Jobs,” but when I did, my score fell. This tool helps you in all these ways boost your open rates.Email MarketingNewOldStamp Email SignatureIn order to look professional, you need an email signature. NEWOLDSTAMP is a tool that allows you to generate a professional-looking email signature. Pick from their many templates or customize your own.Look at the email signature that I made with NewOldStamp. My signature matches my website’s colors and font styles.Did you notice the link at the bottom? With my signature, I can sell my ebook and generate income. Did you notice the social media links? When people click these, they’ll go to my social media sites where my social media followers will go. My website’s URL is also interactive. It’s true: NewOldStamp provides an interactive email signature with the ability to generate web traffic and income.SaleHandyAfter that, you’d better use SaleHandy. When you have created a perfect email, it is important to use personalization and schedule it at the right time in order to gain maximum out of it. SalesHandy helps you send personalized emails to multiple people and takes automated follow-ups in case they haven’t replied or opened your email. Also, it generates recipient engagement data like open rate, response rate, etc. for each individual email sent.SEOKWFinderKWFinder is one of 5 tools in the Mangools suite. You’ll get all 5 tools when you sign up for Mangools suite of SEO tools.KWFinder is a popular keyword tool which shows you how much competition exists online for your keywords, the search volume, and the level of difficulty in easy-to-understand colors we use to drive cars: red for difficult, yellow for caution, and green for easy.In addition, KWFinder lets you organize your keywords into lists. Then, KWFinder ranks your words on the lists. This allows you to see at a glance which keywords are rankable.Don’t waste your time producing content that won’t rank. Articles stay in search engines for years. You should optimize your posts for search engines for this reason. You’ll improve your posts’ shelf life as well as visibility.Let’s take a look: A guest author sent me a post, “Important Tips On Growing An Engaged Social Media Audience For Your Blog.” Do I want to consider the post? Is it a competitive keyword for me? In other words, can my post rank high in Google’s SERPs?35 appears in yellow for my search of the keyword term “social media growthhacking.” Although 35 may indicate this keyword term might be good to try to rank for, N/A indicates there aren’t even 10 searches for this term a month. When I made growth hacking two words and retried, search volume only went to 90. Also, look what populated off to the right:Blogs with high DA rankings have published content using this focus keyword. If I try to rank, I’ll be competing against stiff competition.Do you see how helpful KWFinder is? Perhaps the keyword term “social media engagement” which has almost 3,000 searches per month and a keyword difficulty of 43 might be a better keyword term to try to rank for.SpyfuSpyfu is named for its ability to help you spy on your online competitors. Spyfu is an SEO tool that provides all sorts of metrics. For example, Spyfu shows you your online weaknesses when trying to rank against your competitors.Spyfu will also show you your competitor’s online weakness so you can capitalize on them. Next, do you want to be able to spy on your competitors’ advertising? If yes, Spyfu is the tool for you. Thanks to Spyfu, you can emulate your competitions’ advertising or try to outshine their ads with your own.When trying to find my competitors’ blog coaching ads, I used Spyfu to find this information. V1 standards for Version 1. Clicking it allows me to see the version of the ad and how recently the ad was made. Take advantage of this “spying” feature to write better ads than your competitors.In addition, Spyfu gives you important information about the keywords people are using to find your articles and your positions rankings in the SERPs. As can be seen from this screenshot, 17 of my keywords just made it to Page 1 in Google’s SERPs. There’s so much information for you to learn using Spyfu. For example, Spyfu offers in-depth tutorials.Video MarketingEZVidEZVid is free software. Download and go! Not tech-savvy? EZVid is quick and easy to use. Easily show your potential customers the benefits of using your products. EZVid has both audio as well as video capabilities.Longer videos will be sent to your Google Drive where you can share with a link. You can send your videos to YouTube, Instagram, or share them with colleagues. I recently used EZVid to show my Virtual Assistant how to do some tasks for me.When you show, you build credibility– with your colleagues as well as your website visitors. You can delete EZVid’s watermark which comes in with the free version.