Productivity Tools for Event Planners

Event planners rely on productivity tools to get more done with less effort. Here are a few that belong in your event business toolkit.

This article is the fifth in a series of marketing tools for event businesses. You can read the first three articles here:

But here at ThymeBase, we know that being productive is paramount for event planners and hope that our event planning software is part of your productivity workflow. But we’ve written other articles on productivity that you can find here:

But this piece is focused entirely on tools that will help you get more done. So let’s get to it.

Productivity Is Not Multi-tasking

When it comes to productivity, there are a few lesser-known facts that might surprise you. Sure, multi-tasking may help you look more productive and help you feel like you are getting a ton done. The reality is that multi-tasking is the death of productivity. It turns out that our brains aren’t wired like that. We are wired to focus entirely on one task only.

Another fun fact is that meetings do not help with productivity. They actually have the opposite effect. 47% of people said that meetings are the number 1 waste of time during a survey in 2012. In 2009, a survey showed that 45% of senior executives felt that productivity would increase if meetings were banned once a week.

Why Productivity Tools Matter

Productivity forms a large part of any event business. The outcome of the workweek hinges on it. And every hour worked should be worked efficiently and effectively.

Today, especially after Covid 19, the workspace has generally moved to remote locations. That means that more and more digital tools had to be implemented to increase productivity or help facilitate it during these adjustment periods. Now that we have settled into working remotely, the need for digital productivity tools has continued. That is where we come in.

This list of helpful productivity tools can be implemented in your business to help you utilize the work hours productively, ease the stress of sending files, remove the tedious task of keeping diaries and keep you from wasting precious hours in meetings.

Dropbox Business

Now that we have moved away from an office space, quickly popping into a colleague’s office to deliver a file or clarify a message is no longer possible. While sending files using email is an option, it can become confusing, and the lines of communication can become convoluted. I am sure that most people have heard of Dropbox before this or even used it in the past. The only difference is that Dropbox has had a facelift. With a Dropbox Business account, you can send and share files and use Zoom directly from Dropbox. Creating a space where multiple tools can reside and be accessed helps save time by removing the admin of moving between tools, converting files, and sharing them. Trying out the free trial may be a good place to start when trying to get a feel for the software.

ThymeBase

ThymeBase is the only productivity tool in this list specially built for the event industry. You can manage files, to-do lists, event timelines, team communication, client portals, and event budgets. All in one place. Everything is designed around the event, but each account offers overviews of due tasks, assigned to-dos, and team activity across all events. So if you ever need to know what’s is on your plate for the day, just check in to your ThymeBase account.

Hootsuite

Having multiple social media accounts and platforms is not unusual in the era of social media, but keeping track of them all can be quite a task. That is where Hootsuite saves the day. It allows you to manage the passwords, comments, and messages of up to 10 accounts. Hootsuite eliminates the time spent switching from platform to platform. This platform does have the added bonuses of offering post planning and scheduling and feedback about post engagement, performance, and account followers. Helping you keep track of your social media growth and share it with the rest of your team.

Dialpad Meetings

Many employees feel that meetings are a waste of time. Everyone often thinks that what was discussed could have been summarized in an email. With remote work, web conferencing has increased, replacing the more traditional meeting format. Although web conferencing has now replaced the boardroom, the time they take up has not yet changed. Now the time goes to email the meeting link to all the team members, wait for everyone to join, and proceed.

Dialpad is a browser-based web conferencing platform that focuses on the ease of the conference and the time efficiency. Having your entire team on the platform allows you to click on the members you would like to invite to the meeting and send a request. It’s like a WhatsApp call, but on your browser. You can start conference calls straight from an ongoing chat.

It is unnecessary to have the app to join a call. A client can join the meeting from their browser. The really nifty part of this platform is the recordings that can be taken. You can choose to record the conference and then receive a call summary with important excerpts and stated actions displayed. Making the meeting minutes easily accessible for everyone, they can look at the meeting later and revise the tasks that need to be done. Dialpad is a way to ensure that the time that a meeting takes and uses is efficient and productive, rather than a run of the mill “it has to be done” situation.

iDoneThis

Checking in with a business’s actual productivity and workforce is high up on the list of priorities. Getting progress reports on the completion of tasks and projects helps with the team’s productivity as it eliminates the confusion and grey areas of what has been done and what has yet to be done. iDoneThis is a daily check-in progress tracker that helps the team see where all the members are at by the end of the day. iDoneThis sends reports of an overall view of the team’s progress over a decided time and helps you see the perfectly productive areas and areas that may need improvement. It is a helpful tool when managing a team without looking over their shoulders and micromanaging.

TimeDoctor

When looking for a platform that will help your team as a whole and every member that is part of the team, look no further. TimeDoctor is a platform focused on utilizing time efficiently and thus boosting productivity. With little notifications sent when you stray from your work-related sites to others, it helps keep you on track with the matters at hand.

The app helps to evaluate the amount of time used productively, the amount of time spent idly, and then the unproductive time. It is a useful tool that allows the employees to see where their time goes, encouraging them to self-check and spend it productively.

TimeDoctor also helps with scheduling work around life at home, allowing team members to finish their task when they have the time and when it slots into their schedule, keeping the vital work-life balance. This also helps to eliminate the stress of individual team members as they don’t feel like they need to rush to complete their tasks at work and at home.

Another bonus is the ability to use this app as a billing method. By tracking the time spent on specific tasks, you now have a more accurate way of translating the work done and time spent productively into billable hours when communicating with clients.

Find The Right Productivity Tool For Your Business

The right tool depends on the level of productivity your business needs or keeps up under normal circumstances, the size of your team, or the working space of your team. There are many different productivity tools that can help facilitate the productivity and unity experienced by your team.

The trick is just finding the right one and the one that fits your event business best. Since productivity is very subjective and team-dependent, no one size fits all.