Everyone has their own go-to tools in the event industry that makes life easier. I've heard great things about Evernote, a free app that organizes just about anything you want. Of course, you saw my wall calendar, which keeps me organized. One tool that I like to use when scheduling meetings among more than 4 people is Doodle. Someone in our IT department used it when I first started at UNC a few years ago and I loved the simplicity of it.
Doodle is an online scheduling website. It allows a user to easily schedule an upcoming event and asks the invited attendees to add their name and availability. This can be used in a variety of different ways. You can give everyone the same time of day with different days, or just one day with different times, or both! It's completely customizable.
Once your event and all the time options are created you can either copy the survey link to your e-mail and use your existing e-mail address to invite people to participate or add their e-mail addresses right into the website and send it that way. In either case, participants add their names and put a check mark next to their availability.
I used this to schedule our SGMP board retreat held last week, and it worked wonders! It even told me my most popular date.
So tell me, what great tool do you use as an event planner that you cannot live without? Even if you're not a meeting planner, tell me what tool you use that helps you manage your life. There are so many great apps out there and I'd love to feature them here on my blog. Leave your notes in the comments!