Erik L. Arneson — Writer and Software Developer

Emacs as the Freelancer's Command Center

2026-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

Freelancing for small businesses and organizations leads to a position where you are juggling a number of projects for multiple clients. You need to keep track of a number of tasks ranging from software development to sending emails to project management. This is a lot easier when you have a system that can do a bunch of the work for you, which is why I use Emacs as my freelancer command center.

I would like to share some of the tools and workflows I use in Emacs to help me keep on top of multiple clients’ needs and expectations.

Organization with org-mode

It should be no surprise that at the center of my Emacs command center is org-mode. I have already written about it a lot. Every org-mode user seems to have their own way of keeping track of things, so please don’t take my organizational scheme as some kind of gospel. A couple of years ago, I wrote about how I handle to-do lists in org-mode, and I am still using that method for to-do keywords. However, file structure is also important. I have a number of core files.

`Freelance.org`

This top-level file contains all of my ongoing business tasks, such as tracking potential new clients, recurring tasks like website maintenance and checking my MainWP dashboard. I also have recurring tasks for invoicing, tracking expenses, and other important business things.

This file is also where I have my primary time tracking and reporting. Org-mode already supports this pretty nicely, I just use the built-in clocktable feature.

`Clients/*.org`

Clients that have large projects or ongoing business get their own file. This makes organization a lot easier. All tasks associated with a client and their various projects end up in these individual files. The important part is making sure that these files are included in the time-tracking clock table and your org-mode agenda, so you can see what is going on every week.

References and Linking

I have C-c l bound to org-store-link and use it all the time to link to various files, directories, URLs, and even emails. I can then use those links in my client notes, various tasks in my to-do list, and so on. This helps me keep my agenda organized even when my filesystem and browser bookmarks are a bit of a mess.

Email with mu4e

I have been reading and managing my email in Emacs for over 25 years. There have been a few breaks here and there where I have tried out other software or even web mail clients, but it has always been a headache. I return to Emacs! Long ago, I used VM (which seems to have taken on new life!), but currently I use mu4e.

This gives me a ton of power and flexibility when dealing with email. I have custom functions to help me compose and organize my email, and I can use org-store-link to keep track of individual emails from clients as they relate to agenda items. I even have a function to convert emails that I have written in Markdown into HTML email, and one that searches for questions in a client email to make sure I haven’t missed anything.

The ability to write custom code to both process and create email is extremely powerful and a great time saver.

Writing Code

I don’t know what else to say about this, I use Emacs for doing all of my software development. I make sure to use Eglot whenever there is a language server available, and I try to leverage all the fancy features offered by Emacs whenever possible. The vast majority of projects for clients are PHP (thanks WordPress), Go, JavaScript, and TypeScript.

Writing Words

Previously, I have shared quite a bit about writing in Emacs. I like to start everything in org-mode, but I also write quite a bit in Markdown. Emacs has become a powerful tool for writing. I use the Harper language server along with Eglot to check grammar and spelling.

Track All Changes with Magit

Version control is essential, a lesson I have learned over 30+ years of software development. While Git is not part of Emacs, the software I use to interface with Git is. Magit is a Git user interface that runs entirely in Emacs. I use it to track my writing, my source code, and even all of my org-mode files. Using version control is so essential that I have a weekly repeating agenda task reminding me to check all of my everyday files to make sure I have checked-in my changes for the week.

Thinking Music with EMMS

I like to have some soothing background music when I am programming, writing, or otherwise working on my computer. However, if that background music has lyrics, it can be really distracting. It is easy to make a playlist for various suitable SomaFM channels to load into EMMS (the Emacs Multimedia System) using the command M-x emms-play-playlist.

Try saving the following into playlist.el somewhere, and using it the next time you are writing:

 ;;; This is an EMMS playlist file Play it with M-x emms-play-playlist
 ((*track* (type . url) (name . "https://somafm.com/synphaera.pls"))
  (*track* (type . url) (name . "https://somafm.com/gsclassic.pls"))
  (*track* (type . url) (name . "https://somafm.com/sonicuniverse.pls"))
  (*track* (type . url) (name . "https://somafm.com/groovesalad.pls")))

And make sure to check out SomaFM’s selection to find some good background music that suits your tastes!

And the tools I have missed

There are undoubtedly Emacs tools that I have missed in this brief overview. I have been wracking my brain as I write, trying to see what I have forgotten or overlooked. Frankly, Emacs has become such a central part of the organization for my freelancing that there are probably many tools, packages, and processes that I use every day without thinking about it too much.

Emacs makes it possible for me to freelance for multiple clients and small businesses without losing my mind with organization and task management. The tools it provides allow me to stay on top of multiple projects, handle client relationships, and keep track of years worth of tasks, communications, and projects. Without it, I’d be sunk!

What Emacs tools are you using to manage your freelance business? I am always looking for ways to improve or streamline my process.

The featured image for this post comes from Agostino Ramelli’s Le diverse et artificiose machine (1588). Read more about it on the Public Domain Review.

Please Use Version Control

2015-04-09T03:07:44+00:00

Stack Overflow released their 2015 Developer Survey this week, and it has some interesting results. There are plenty of articles being written about their findings, so I’m only going to focus on one of them: version control.

9.3% of Respondents Don't Use Version Control

StackOverflow says that almost 10% of developers still aren’t using version control. This is terrible. If you happen to be one of the developers who hasn’t adopted version control yet, make it your next priority!

Version control, also known as source control or revision control, is vital to best programming practices. It provides an incremental backup along with comments and notes on changes that have been made. It provides a view of changes and all kinds of handy features, such as handling conflicts between changes, release tagging, code branches, and more. If you aren’t sure what version control is, check out Ilya Olevsky’s post, “Why Version Control is Critical to Your Success,” and then come back here.

Essential to Collaboration and Continuity

If you are looking to hire a freelance developer, make sure you hire one that uses version control. It is essential to maintaining a healthy history of code releases, project updates, and bug fixes. What if you only need to use your freelancer every once in a while? What if you decide to add more developers, or change developers all together? Without version control, this becomes a nightmare.

A client recently brought me a project that had been built by another developer a couple of years ago. They wanted to move their web application from one host to another. However, there was a lot that needed to be cleaned up before the move could happen, including some outdated PHP code and odd database settings. In the project’s main directory, there was a mess of old, unused source code files. Just the index.php file had multiple versions:

index2.php
index3.php
indexold.php
index.php_old
index.php_bak

In all, there were 598 unused files that were unnecessary backups of old, broken code. This type of mess is easily avoided with version control. Please stay sane, keep your customers happy, and your source code easy to navigate. Use version control.

Getting Started with Version Control

If you’ve decided to make the right move and start using version control, you will see that there are many to choose from. However, if you’re just going to learn one, you should start with Git. As you can see from the survey, it is the most widely used. The best place to start is probably in the free e-book offered by the Git development team. Click here to get started.

If You're Doing It, Thank You

The first time I encountered a team that wasn’t using version control, I was shocked. The second time, I sighed in exasperation. Now, I am thankful that over 90% of developers are using it, and I look forward to the day that every project I join comes with a git log command. If you are using version control, I hope you spread the word and make sure that your fellow programmers are doing it, too. Save the rest of us some pain!

As a bonus, here’s my favorite git log command. Add it to your aliases.

git log --oneline --graph --all --decorate

The featured image for this post is a pile of logs, to remind you that logs are important, and a vital part of version control.

Small Team Software Change Management

2014-12-18T01:45:51+00:00

Until October, I’d been using a paid GitHub account to manage source code changes and issue tracking for private projects. GitHub is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product providing a web-based interface for source control management and various project tracking tasks. Some people love it and some aren’t fond of it.

My software development clients are typically small companies wanting fairly simple web applications. They hire me because having a developer on staff doesn’t fit into their budget or business plan. They don’t usually care what the source code for their project looks like, but they do care about tracking issues.

Because of the scope of these applications, it’s rare that I work with other programmers. This meant that I wasn’t using any of the special features of GitHub for private code repositories, so in October I cancelled my subscription.

My private repositories are now self-hosted, and I browse them using GitList, which bills itself as “an elegant and modern git repository viewer.” It looks nice, and I’ve got no complaints. For issue tracking, I use Freshbooks, a SaaS accounting system. With Freshbooks, I can not only keep track of bug reports and issues, but I can record time spent on bug reports, feature creep, and other client-related issues.

GitList and Freshbooks isn’t a perfect solution. At some point, I will be working with another developer, and we will need a way to track bugs and issues internally. When that happens, I plan to deploy Gitolite and find some new issue-tracking solution.

By the way, another reason I stopped using paid GitHub features is because they’ve already made plenty of money, and I’m not sure they’re doing the right things with all of that money.

I’m curious about what others are using. How does your incredibly small team track code changes and issues? Are all of your software issues internal, or are you developing for clients? I’d love to hear some ideas.