stress reduction

5am Music Club: Use Doodle to easily schedule events when you have seven members like us

February 5, 2017

Snotty but undefeated air fives* 5am club! Along with a shared band calendar, Doodle is our top tip for finding out when people are available to do stuff. It’s easy to use and free, the best combo. Essentially you suggest some dates you think might work, everyone responds yes/no to each one and then you get a grid showing what days everyone can make.

  1. Open up doodle.com
  2. Create an event, eg. ‘Next recording session’.
  3. Select some potential dates. Tip: if you want to make it a whole week or weekend, click the first date then drag the right-hand arrow along.
  4. Specify start/end times if you want.
  5. Leave it as a ‘Basic’ poll if you just want people to respond yes/no to each date, otherwise there’s a few additional options like yes/no/if need be.
  6. Bang in the emails of your bandmates and hit Finish. They’ll then be emailed the suggested dates.
  7. Each response updates the grid and you’ll end up with something like this little beauty:
Doodle results grid

Doodle results grid

Let us know how you get on. See ya tomorrow!

* The most hygienic five: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rsoAuo9AgU

5amMusicClub: Get a shared band calendar

February 3, 2017

Sleep-addled fist bump 5am-ers! One move that really helped Flights of Helios get organised was a shared online calendar. We use Google Calendar. We put in band commitments (rehearsals, gigs, baannd meetings) and personal ones (holidays, weddings, Settlers of Catan games), everyone’s got it on their phone and so we can answer pretty accurately whether people are available for new fun stuff.

So our calendar’s called Flights of Helios and is on our flightsofhelios@gmail.com Google account. Each band member has a Google account tied to their email address (doesn’t need to be a Gmail one) and the calendar is shared to them with permissions to ‘make changes and manage sharing’.

Sign up for a Google Account then create a calendar, then invite people and set permissions in the Calendar Settings:

Then just hit ‘Share My Calendar’ and add email addresses; if the person doesn’t have a Google account yet they’ll get an email asking them to make one. TTFN x