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About this lesson

Event planning isn’t easy, especially because you’re also working, raising a family, studying, and being responsible for a thousand and one other things.  Evernote is your all-in-one solution to planning.

Quick reference

Topic

Organizing Events.

When to use

Event planning isn’t easy, especially because you’re also working, raising a family, studying, and being responsible for a thousand and one other things.  Evernote is your all-in-one solution to planning.

Instructions

1.Collect ideas

Evernote makes it easy to collect ideas from various sources and in multiple formats. You don’t even need access to the Internet to jot down thoughts and ideas.  Just use the Evernote app on your phone, and your info will be synced the moment you’re back online.

At your computer, you can copy info to the clipboard and paste it into a note.  Use the web clipper to clip articles, URLs, and entire web pages—directly from your browser.

Let’s say you just found out your sister is pregnant and that in a few months you’ll be planning her baby shower.  You’ll probably want to start poking around online—looking for ways to decorate the place where you’ll have the party, searching for stores to shop for party gifts, and finding just the right caterers or restaurants.

All you need to do in Evernote is create a notebook called “Baby Shower.” Whenever you come across an interesting idea, add it to this notebook.  You can also use tags and tag your party idea notes using the same tag.

2. Plan the event

Ready to plan the party? Create a new note in Evernote and title it “Baby Shower for Claire, May 5.” List everything you can think of: who you want to invite, where to hold the party, who should cater it, how you want to decorate the place, what you want to give her as a present, etc.  For inspiration, pull out your notes with different baby shower ideas.

Set a reminder for this note. Click the little clock avatar in the upper right  corner of the note, which will enable you to set a due date and get the post pinned to the top so you can easily access it.  (Alternatively, drag the note into your Shortcuts on the upper left corner).

Want to cross-reference examples of ideas you already have in your Evernote?

Find the note you want to reference, right click, and select “Copy Note Link” from the drop down menu.  Then go back to your main “Baby Shower for Claire, May 5” note and paste the link.

Using one single note to do all your planning ensures that you have everything that needs to happen in one place so nothing falls through the cracks.

3. Organize your to-dos

Now it’s time to streamline your to-dos by creating categories for them. For this event, you might want categories for Guests, Decorations, Gifts, Place, and Food.

Move the to-dos into their respective categories.

Under Decorations, you might have a list of items you want to buy to decorate the place or links to notes with screenshots of beautifully decorated rooms you want to replicate.  Under Food, you may have a list of your local caterers, etc.

Put due dates next to each item, so everything comes together beautifully by May 5.

If you’ll be asking other people to take care of certain to-dos, put their names next to their to-do items, so you don’t forget to confirm their availability, let them know what they’re responsible for, and follow up with them closer to the deadline.

Use the checkbox Evernote feature to track your progress.

4. Get help

You don’t have to be the one doing all heavy lifting. Collaboration is easy with Evernote.  You can share individual notes and even notebooks. Want someone to help you with certain tasks? Share a note with them by using the Evernote Share feature (upper right corner of the note).

Let’s say you want a friend to buy specific decorations.  You can share with her with the list of items you need or a note with a screenshot of the beautifully decorated room that you want to replicate.

Maybe you want another friend to take care of food.  You can share a note with a list of caterers that you want her to call and/or dishes that your sister loves.

Set reminders for yourself to follow up with your collaborators.

And then, when the day comes, enjoy your event!!

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  • 00:04 Event planning isn't easy, because there is just way too many moving parts.
  • 00:09 And there is so much else that's happening in your lives, so
  • 00:12 you have to be able to juggle it all.
  • 00:15 So why not try and use Evernote to help you collect ideas,
  • 00:21 plan the event, and delegate some of those responsibilities?
  • 00:26 So in this lesson, we're going to talk about exactly that,
  • 00:30 how you can turn Evernote into your own one solution to event planning.
  • 00:37 First of all, collecting ideas.
  • 00:39 You know that it's extremely easy to add information into Evernote.
  • 00:45 You can copy information to the clipboard and paste it into a note.
  • 00:50 You can drag and drop documents into Evernote.
  • 00:53 You can forward emails.
  • 00:55 You can use web clipper to clip articles, URLs for entire web pages.
  • 01:01 You can even have others do that and then exchange ideas.
  • 01:06 So collecting ideas into Evernote is not just easy, but also fun.
  • 01:13 But then you have to start doing planning.
  • 01:16 Planning begins with just sitting down and brainstorming what you want to happen.
  • 01:23 What are the those individual things that need to happen, and
  • 01:28 how you can group these things.
  • 01:31 How you will need to think of things like who you want to invite,
  • 01:35 where you are going to hold this event, who will be catering it,
  • 01:40 how you will decorate the place.
  • 01:43 What you will give as a present.
  • 01:45 Actually it will depend on the type of the event that you are organizing, but
  • 01:49 all these are common things that you might want to think about
  • 01:53 when you organize an event or a party.
  • 01:58 But once you have that list,
  • 02:01 you can easily see how you can group those items, so that
  • 02:07 you have a clear list of categories of things that need to happen.
  • 02:13 Like guests, decorations, gifts, place, food.
  • 02:18 And the way that you are going to organize it in Evernote, is that you can have
  • 02:22 that original list, so you can list everything in a single note.
  • 02:27 But you can also have individual notes for ideas.
  • 02:34 Who you want to cater your event, or
  • 02:37 notes where you clipped interesting ways to decorate the room.
  • 02:43 You can also have due dates for each single item,
  • 02:48 and each single note, and take it even further and set a reminder for
  • 02:53 the note, so that you know when something needs to happen.
  • 02:58 Lastly, involve others.
  • 03:01 Make sure that you don't do everything yourself.
  • 03:05 And you can share with them that main master task list, for that event.
  • 03:12 That list where you brainstormed everything.
  • 03:15 Or you can send them individual notes with details.
  • 03:20 So if you want, for example, to have someone take care of the food,
  • 03:25 you can send them a note with the caterer that you are going to use, for that event.
  • 03:33 And have your friends get in touch with them and take care of all the details.
  • 03:38 Or you can have another friend take care of decorations, so
  • 03:43 you can send her a bunch of notes with different ideas and
  • 03:48 names of the stores, where she can go to to get those decorations.
  • 03:54 You can also have chats with them using work chat feature,
  • 03:58 so that, say somebody is on the go and
  • 04:01 they want to run by you an idea, they can quickly get in touch with you.
  • 04:06 You can also use Evernote to take snapshots of something, and
  • 04:09 immediately send it to the people you are organizing this event with,
  • 04:14 to see if they approve of, say a specific decoration or
  • 04:19 a place, the venue for that event.
  • 04:23 So, you can get very creative when organizing events with Evernote.
  • 04:28 And again, Evernote will make your event planning not just easy, but also fun.

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