5 Useful Guidelines for Event Planners to Boost Productivity While Diminishing Stress

August 10, 2019 Susan Serena

All demanding jobs can be extremely stressful and there is no group of professionals who knows that better than event planners in New York. Even the most experienced #eventprofs become strained and feel there’s never enough time to complete all their work. Especially when things don’t go as planned.

But where there’s a will there’s a way.

We’re going to review some guidelines in this post, that if you follow, you’re golden. The goal is getting you to redirect how you use your time and energy to manage your tasks in a more efficient way and reduce stress.

5 Useful Guidelines for Event Planners to Follow to Reduce Stress

1. Establishing Your Workflow

How you divide and conquer your space and time plays a major role on the toll your day to day will take on your emotional and physical energy. If you develop efficient work habits it will fashion a strong and productive foundation. Start with:

  • Creating a very Zen work area. Clutter tends to unravel your otherwise balanced mind and the clearer your workspace is, the more you’ll be able to steadily focus on your tasks.
  • Outlining a schedule of your tasks and then working off that list to stay structured.
  • Scheduling breaks! Most companies provide a 1-hour break to every 8-hour workday. Event planners in New York should do the same whether they work for someone or themselves. If a full hour doesn’t seem feasible, break the hour up throughout the day. I.E. Take 2 15-minute breaks, and a ½ hour lunch.

When you outline your day, also leave a little wiggle room for anything that may come up unexpectedly. You don’t want unplanned surprises cutting too much into your organized schedule. If you leave room in between tasks for unforeseen requests, you’ll still be able to complete the rest of your tasks inconsequentially.

2. Keeping it Real

You’re not a superhero, you’re an Event Planner (although we do come pretty darn close). Your job is to produce the best possible event for guests, all while ensuring that your team is focused and working productively. To make sure that the goals are clear, create a document outlining the purpose for the event along with roles each team member will play. Your event purpose should be aligned with your event planning company’s mission as a brand so make sure everyone is clear on the big picture and keep them motivated so that they’re working at their best.

When you connect your event goals to your brand’s initiatives, you’ll develop a company culture that will inspire your team to continuously deliver successful and impactful event outcomes.

3. The Art of Automation

It’s a wonder why more Event Planners in New York don’t take up the art of automation. If you’re doing the same tasks daily (especially those that are time consuming) then create a recipe that will automate your tasks. You can try using IFTTT (If This Then That) which is a platform that gets your devices and apps connected and talking to each other, and that does includes your social media profiles.

If you’re always posting manually on social media, creating spreadsheets to track your newest followers, publishing event photos and videos, etc. you can set IFTTT to do it for you. You’re also able to sync your event data by integrating IFTTT with Salesforce. By integrating, you’ll be cutting down your to do list enough to free up time that you could use to work on other areas, or even better, to relax!

4. Minimize Unforeseen Circumstance

To produce a successful event, you have to be able to rely on the relationships you build with your vendors, sponsors, investors, contractors, and talent. Using reputable vendors is a great start but it’s up to you to voice your expectations from the very beginning. The last thing you want to hear is “Oh! We had no idea that’s what you meant.”

Make sure that you let each organization you partner with for an event know what the event outlook is and make your deadlines clear to them. Be very detailed in the contracts you create and include cut-off dates for any changes. You don’t want your event partners backing out at the last minute, leaving you to take on an entirely new set of tasks. Some last-minute changes are unavoidable but the more you include on a contract, the less likely it is for people to back out of them. If you include penalty fees for cancelling or changing event details after a set date in your contracts, it will decrease the chance of unexpected changes even more.

5. Smart Marketing

With all that the latest technology facilitates for event planners, there should be no reason whatsoever for your marketing efforts to be time consuming. With programs like Hootsuite out there, you should be able to cut down a lot of time by scheduling your posts across multiple platforms ahead of time. You can also keep track of how your posts are doing by running analytics reports and see which one of your campaigns is a hit or miss. Then it’s up to your team to tweak what need be to find the proper balance between what’s working, and what’s not.

The most fruitful aspect of social media is that it does the marketing for you, if you enable it to. You can’t just have social media profiles and not consistently spread your brand message, publish event details, collaborate with influencers, etc. It’s imperative that you strategically use your social media platforms to spread the word for your events. Make sure to include a customized event hashtag when posting on Facebook, Facebook Stories, Facebook Live, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Instagram Stories, & Instagram Live.

Conclusion

The key to diminishing your daily stress and boost productivity is to work smart, not hard. You have to become a productivity expert in order to place your tasks in the right processes using the latest technology from the very beginning. Event Planners in New York have enough items on their to do list, so finding the way to make everything flow more efficiently will remarkably help reduce stress.

New York Event Planners are encouraged to get their tickets to go to the Event Planner Expo!  We’ve packed the 2019 Expo with resourceful workshops and keynote speakers that are sure to deliver valuable information that will help your climb to the top of the event professionals list. Come rub shoulders with Event Pros who specialize in every niche of the business!

 

Previous Article
5 Critical Event Planning Mistakes to Avoid
5 Critical Event Planning Mistakes to Avoid

There are certain mistakes you need to avoid when planning an event. Read these event planning tips to lear...

Next Article
The Transformation of Event Planners to Event Strategists
The Transformation of Event Planners to Event Strategists

Over the past several years we have seen an unprecedented transformation in the roles of Event Planners as ...