Follow Your Deadlines!

I haven't posted since Thursday! Ack! Bad Shira bad! I did have good reason though, I promise :)

So here is yet another event planning advice post.

I have mentioned this in a few posts, but when planning your event it is important to have deadlines and follow them. Deadlines will hold you accountable for all the various tasks you need to complete for your event. They will keep you organized and show you everything that needs to be done from beginning to end. Deadline items can include creating a floor plan, booking cartering, confirming a venue, confirming sponsors etc. Laying out deadlines and following them will help you execute a successful event.

Here are some guidelines when making your deadlines:

• Make your deadline list early. It is important to lay out all your deadlines at the initial planning stages of your event. By doing thing this, you will know everything that needs to get done well in advance. Of course, you will probably have to add more items to the list as you go through the planning process.
• Be detailed. Think of every single item that needs to be complete in order for your event to be successful and record it. It's important to think of every little detail of your event and this will help you with figuring out all the deadlines. A good exercise that a previous boss taught me is to have a blank sheet of paper and write down all your event tasks. Once all the tasks are written, review them, record them into a spreadsheet and assign deadlines to each.
• Be prepared to make adjustments. As much as you want the deadlines not to change, they will. Make sure you are prepared to make changes to your deadlines, if need be. If you are postponing deadlines because of time constraints, make sure you can realistically finish everything on time for your event.
• Be realistic. It's important to make realistic deadlines. Really think about how long it will realistically take you to finish each event task. You can of course make adjustments, but you also don't want to disappoint yourself, clients and suppliers if you promised for an item to be complete by a certain time.
• Share your deadlines with your event team. If you have event planning assistants, depending on their role, it would be a good idea to share the deadlines with them. By doing this, your team will be organized and everyone will be working towards a common goal.

Event deadlines are crucial for a successful event. Without them, you will have no idea what needs to be complete and you won't be able to see the finish line.

-Shira :)