Todoist: Know what you have to do

I find to-do lists crucial to get stuff done, but only after I had an epiphany: you will only be successful if you follow a tried and true process that works for you.

Popular literature suggests to follow the 1-3-5 rule: accomplish one big thing per day, three medium things, and five small things. My personal advice is to tackle that one task you feel like procrastinating first thing - regardless of its size.

Once you master that, make sure you select the right tool to track your to-do lists. Todoist, an app that syncs across devices, is the tech-savvy choice. To-dos can be added, managed and marked off from your browser, tablet and mobile. You can set up reminders and track your success.

Our minds are busy these days, and this helps to keep up with the things that matter - today. It is crucial for professional success, especially in events and PR.

Slack: Communicate and collaborate effectively

Slack changes the way teams communicate. Is your team bigger than three people? If so: get Slack. The app works on your mobile phone and as a standalone program on your laptop, and organizes conversations in a smart and efficient way that email and water-cooler chats just can’t replicate on their own.

When we introduced Slack at zkipster about three years ago, we had no idea how much noise it would eliminate. Today, we send updates and reminders via Slack, but we still push bigger projects through email. We are diligent about what we communicate how and where, knowing that Slack can create noise too. But overall it’s a channel that makes everyone on the team a better, faster collaborator.

Calendly: Simplify the chaos of scheduling meetings

We’ve all been on that neverending email thread: hunting for the one mystery time that works for all the right people to meet at once.

Sound familiar? Calendly makes scheduling nightmares like that a breeze by creating a central location for tracking available times, and letting guests pick from a real-time list of what’s available.

It’s an elegant solution that gets back a surprising amount of your time and energy that’s wasted on sorting out dozens of schedules, and can make everything from interviews to managing vendors and clients a breeze.

zkipster: Manage your events and guests in one workflow

The go-to-solution for event professionals and publicists who work with guest lists. 

With zkipster you can upload your contacts into a powerful guest list manager, send out invitation campaigns, build seating maps, print badges and check-in guests from unlimited mobile devices. All the above used to be a madhouse of (mis)organization: legacy filing systems, mail merges, and clipboards overflowing with stacks of lists.

Ten years ago, when we developed the bold idea for solving this problem with one software for non-ticketed events, we didn’t anticipate the technological turmoil the global workforce was about to go through.

As much as a digital check-in app was revolutionary a while ago, we are now already wrapping our heads around what’s next: artificial intelligence and how it will support guest curation in the future.

Calm: Rest your mind and practice for the storm to come

If you want to get stuff done, make sure you give your mind a break.

Cut down push notifications on your phone and only keep the important ones on. Work with todo-lists, introduce shareable documents and move your event campaigns into the cloud. But most importantly, consider meditation. If you are more at ease in your day to day, you will get more stuff done. Simple as that.

One would think meditation is the pure opposite of technology. But as much as you can use technology in a mindful way, you can integrate apps into your mediation practice. My favorite one is Calm, an app that is also a great resource for learning more about meditation. They offer lectures, challenge you with 7-day streaks and add new guided meditations every day.

Calm your mind when you have a minute will save you a lot of anxiety and stress when your projects are in full-throttle.