Skift Take
Whether you are an event planner working from desktop, tablet or smartphone these tools can help you boost your productivity to get things done, even when you are on the move.
Productivity is key to being an unstoppable eventprof, generally because we have so many jobs to do in a day, but there are plenty of tools out there to help us to be awesome. With innovative technology for our attendees and to improve our events, it is only right that we use solutions for ourselves and get a little help getting it all done. Here are some of the best free or freemium apps and tools that you can use to supercharge your work and productivity.
If you are prone to procrastination, this may be the chrome extension for you! It allows you to block certain websites (probably Facebook!) or all websites for a certain time limit to stop you from logging in. You can set specific allowed sites if you still need to be online, e.g. your emails, but it has a block list that is saved so that you aren’t allowed to look at all of those cat videos until the time is up! You can also block sites based on content too if you don’t want to get specific about it but customised settings can remind you to get back to it and stop the procrastination.
Allowing you to set daily goals and look at your completion rates, this app helps to keep you on track and look at which days are the most productive and where you need to improve. You can set reminders and improve your focus by showing just what is on the top of your to-do list for the day.
This free note taking tool is perfect for jotting down quick notes and then allowing you to log in from any of your devices later on. Simply download the app on your phone or tablet and access via the web browser and you can save and share links or have access to your ideas from anywhere. This is particularly useful if you sometimes work from home or are on the move a lot.
Perfect for event teams who are sharing a collaborative project and have to-do lists that are shared because it means you can all work remotely or from your desk without wasting time with who is doing what. Todoist allows you to access tasks from anywhere, including on and offline and across several platforms. Suitable for everyone and their multiple devices.
“If This, Then That,” is a program that helps you to combine other services together and create conditional statements that trigger certain actions based on the services you add. It’s web based which makes it perfect for the office and can help with social media optimization, detecting your daily computer patterns and helping you streamline them and linking events together.
Save time checking your spelling or grammar with this chrome extension and app that automatically proofreads text and underlines something that needs to be changed. You can set your area so that it corrects the right spelling and offers suggestions for changes by easily hovering over them. Plus you can upload large offline texts to proofread and make changes too.
This social media management app can help you link all channels together and reply easily from one dashboard. You can schedule posts, reply to users and interact from one place to save logging in and out of accounts. See analytics of how your posts or channels are doing which saves time and streamlines your social media working.
If you haven’t heard of this tool for your event team, then you need it! It’s fantastic for collaborating and allows discussions, conversations, task organising and project tracking for your team and has an in-built inbox system so you don’t have to log in and out or change screens to have a discussion. It is available on mobile and tablet devices as well as the desktop for inside and outside the office. The premium version allows you to track things in more detail including client leads!
This chrome extension is useful if you work on a desktop constantly as it turns the “new tab” function into a motivational quote and background reminder that can cater to your working tasks. It has beautiful backgrounds and displays your most important tasks for the day as well as your to-do list which you can easily add and strike off tasks to. At the end of each day it automatically carries over any leftover tasks so that when you start the day you can see exactly where you are at!
For freelance eventprofs looking for more clients or more work, Upwork can be incredibly worthwhile! It’s free to join and has a variety of projects that you can apply for. What makes it special is it leans towards the creative freelance industry. Create a profile and you can get reviewed based on your work, a rating system that allows you to be shown for jobs first and you can bid on jobs or change your hourly rate depending on what you are applying for, plus clients can ask you to interview or apply so that it has some static benefits showcasing your work.
For streamlining your emails, Boomerang can help you to schedule emails out of hours, snooze messages, set-up auto responses and keep track of emails that haven’t responded yet and remind yourself to follow-up. It is one of the best tools for prospecting and can help you to keep track of leads that have gone cold and boost the chances of being able to warm them back up again. It’s available for Gmail, Outlook, Android and you can have it as a Chrome extension on your desktop too.
Where would this list be without the old reliable Google Drive that makes collaborative working and editing much easier as well as being a fantastic cloud-based storage. Available on your devices and desktop you can have access to your documents from anywhere and it also allows you to share them with your contacts, giving you the option of read only or editing privileges for collaborative working, and you don’t even have to leave your desk.
A great team project manager that is more user friendly and aesthetically pleasing for the creative mind as it creates “cards” that you can allocate to users and organise them per list for different projects or events. You can see who is working on what and track the progress of individuals and larger tasks as well as combine with your to-do lists. Perfect for any event manager!
Mind maps can be a powerful tool for brainstorming, event planning and focusing your thoughts but it is time and space consuming trying to draw them out on paper. Luckily Coggle has got you covered in it’s mind map software that allows you to upload images, download your finished mind map as a PDF or collaborate with others. Make some pretty amazing results far more efficiently.
Focusing on the scheduling element to social media, the buffer app and chrome extension allow you to schedule to any of your social media channels from the same place. What sets this tool apart however is the ability to use the extension on any webpage to save the URL and create a post on your social media channels no matter where you are browsing without having to copy and paste. Perfect for providing quality content to your users with minimal effort.
For iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch users you can use a handy automation app that allows you to take everyday workflow tasks that you waste time on and automate them to save you time and effort so they will do it in the background. You can link a variety of different apps together so that you spend less time transferring from one to the other and have everything you need in one place, such as playlists, Dropbox, health trackers, social media channels, file downloaders and tons more!
For those who know they are wasting time but not sure how, Rescue Time is an app that highlights where you are getting most distracted, the sites and programs you are frequently on and can analyse your most productive hours or days. Plus it displays them in easy graphics so there’s no confusion and allows you to see the hours you have logged per day and tracks this over time. You can also generate reports too!
If you are regularly signing contracts or documents and need to get it done quickly while ensuring they are legally binding then HelloSign allows you to sign digitally and send through to others. *Just make sure to check that it is legal in your area or state.
This team communication app will help discuss several topics at once with different channels and allows you to share files while syncing to your devices. You can sync other apps such as Skype and the free version allows two person video chats with a great, clean dashboard that makes chatting easy in your team.
-
DayDeed
Measure your daily performance and easily track tasks over a week or day which is particularly useful if you are trying to create healthy, productive habits in your life. This tracker has a sleep design making it easy to use and allows reward or punishment settings if you reach your goals (or not) for an extra incentive.
In Conclusion
Now you have no excuses for not being productive whether you work in a team or individually, use these apps and tech on your devices to help you be the best eventprof you can be, organise your time and keep you on top of your game!
Recommended Further Reading
Want to know how to get more from these tools? Unlock 25 Productivity Secrets from Tools Eventprofs Use Everyday.
