Doodle This

Every job has at least one undesirable aspect to it. We all have to do unenjoyable, mundane tasks at times. For me one of those tasks is scheduling group meetings. While I don't do this often, when I do it's a total nightmare. It would be fairly easy if everyone within the institution that I work used the same e-mail system, for instance Microsoft Outlook, which has an easy calendar and meeting requests function. But this is not the case.

Up until recently, I would e-mail the parties involved with potential dates and times, and wait for a response on their availability. Then I would have to manually tally up all the responses. Often the process took so long that by the time everyone got back to me, those dates and times initially proposed had passed, or did not work anymore. It's was a really inefficient process.

Recently a colleague from a peer institution sent me a Doodle request when scheduling our next conference call. As their website accurately states, "Doodle takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of people to meet and makes scheduling virtually effortless."

The basic service is free and requires neither registration nor software installation. It's kind of like the Surveymonkey of scheduling tools. All you have to do is set up a brief poll with potential dates and times. You e-mail the Doodle link to the recipient and they simply click the radio button indicating their availability. Doodle tallies the results for you and displays it in a very easy, clear manner.

If painful scheduling is part of your job, this tool is definitely worth your while. Check it out!