Whether you're an instructor, a student, or a staff member, part of your responsibilities inevitably involve meeting with other people for collaborative work or discussion. And there aren't many things more tedious or unnecessarily difficult than trying to find a meeting time that works for everyone.
If you've ever had to suffer through a dozen back-and-forth emails or text messages among a group of people about who's going to be free at what time and for how long, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Email is great for many things, but this task just isn't one of them.
Fortunately, online tools exist for simplifying and automating this task. One of those tools is Doodle.com:
Provide a clear description of the purpose of the meeting.
Dates in the past are light gray, while dates in the future are dark gray.
The dates you choose will turn green, and a list will appear on the right.
If you change your mind about a particular date, click on the red X next to it to delete it.
In each slot, enter both a start time and an end time.
To avoid confusion, be sure to specify "am" or "pm."
You can click on the words "Participation Link" and then copy that address for emailing.
Or you can click on "let Doodle send out the invitation" and follow the instructions.
When team members are choosing times, they should not just choose their favorite time.
Instead, they should choose all of the times that they would be available for a meeting.
In this hypothetical example, Tuesday at 10am is the only time that works for everyone on the team...
...so that's the time your team will meet!
It's possible, however, that there will be more than one time when everyone can meet. If that's the case, then the meeting organizer should just pick one time.
It's also possible that there is no time that everyone can meet. If that's the case, I recommend that the meeting organizer do one of two things:
Created by George H. Williams.
Please send any questions or feedback to George.H.Williams@gmail.com
This work is published with a Creative Commons
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.