Five Ways To Stay Organized During Busy Season
It is that time of the year again!! Busy season. January is quiet, February is full planning mode and March into April is a rush of events. We’ve all seen the memes “I’m just trying to excel at work, be a good friend, drink enough water, exercise, text everyone back, stay sane and be happy”. Well in the event industry the meme is more like, “I’m just trying to respond to all of my emails, attend all of the walkthroughs/tastings, check things off my to-do list, get all of the vendors in order, be on all of the weekly check-in calls, and not lose my cool.”
Spring is a wild time and if you’re not careful it can spiral out really quickly. We at RJ Whyte have a few tricks up our sleeves that keep us working smarter, not harder so we hope you enjoy!
#1: Use a Task Management System
During the onboarding process with a new client, we always create a planning timeline in Airtable that we share with the client. It breaks out every small detail and to-do into an organized, dated list. It also allows for each individual task to be assigned to a person/team which means that everyone knows exactly what they should be doing.
Every week we go through it internally to make sure that things are getting checked off and updated for each event. It’s an easy way to keep everyone in line, but also allows clients to see progress which is encouraging for everyone!
#2: Stay on Top of Your Inbox
This is a controversial statement, but we do not batch read our email inboxes. We do our best to stay on top of the emails as they roll in.
It can be really easy to let emails fall by the wayside, but we believe that during busy season it is important to check our inboxes frequently because last-minute items pop up, changes happen and it’s best to deal with them in a time appropriate manner.
#3: Keep Your Workspace Clean
It’s easy to let papers pile up, files sprawl everywhere and event bags explode but it will help your state of mind if you take five minutes a day to put things away and tidy up. Small steps will pay off in the long run, especially when you’re swamped. There is nothing worse than being on-site at an event and not knowing where you put that backup stapler from the event bag so take five minutes today and inventory your on-site bag so you’re prepared for your first event of the season!
#4: Make Decisions Quickly
Things pop up last minute in our world, how you handle them speaks volumes. Having the ability to think quickly and calmly in the moment is so important. Leading up to the event it’s important to put things aside and add to your to-do list but if you have the ability to decide on a task in the moment why not check it off? We spend so much time thinking things over just to trust our original choice so why not cut out the back and forth and be firm and confident in our decision.
#5: Create a Day To-Do List the Night Before
If you take just one thing away from this post, it would be this point! Creating a priority list at the end of every day for the following day is life-changing. It helps you figure out what is most important in your task list and then rank the remaining tasks in order. For example, any email follow up is normally at the top of our list because we can fire those off first thing. It’s also an easy task that makes you feel accomplished which is always a good way to start the day!
Best of luck on this busy season! Stay calm, stay organized, and stay focused, we will see you on the other side! ☺