Over the last few days, I’ve been sharing some of my favorite web-based tools for making life a little easier on the scheduling front. One of the greatest joys of scheduling is finding a date in common. Strike that. One of the largest possible headaches in the world is finding a date in common. Whether it’s for a children’s party or a coffee date with friends, clashing schedules can mean that it takes as long to plan the timing of an event as it does to plan the event itself.
I used to email everyone to see what dates worked for them. This would make me crazy. Then someone I know used a Doodle poll, and I haven’t looked back. Really, this is a wonderful invention. It stops my head from exploding with all of the infinite details of everyone’s schedule, and that can only be a good thing.
How does Doodle work? It’s simple. You sign up for an account here. Click on schedule an event, because that’s what you want to do. Give your event a title, such as “Maya’s birthday party”. Give your event a location, such as “Our house.” Add a contact email.
Doodle will then prompt you to add dates and times that work for you. This is good. It ensures that you can actually attend the event that you’re organizing. You set the parameters, and then you can email the link to those you are inviting to the event. They go to the link, put in their name, and click on all of the days and times they are available. By the end, you can see what times are available for everyone – or almost everyone.
Of course, using a tool like this doesn’t guarantee that anyone will actually be around to go to the event. However, it is a good way to schedule (and reschedule) events with a knowledge of what dates work for different people instead of having an interminable email chain!