I am a visual person,until I have a Pert Chart or a Gantt Chart I don’t really understand a project.  I love Gantt Project a free and open source project management software.  It is similar to Microsoft Project with one big advantage (besides being free) that it is cross platform working on Windows, Linux and MacOS.  I have started creating project schedules in Gantt Project and sending clients the file and a link to the software download, seems to work well.