Do you doodle?

(This is fairly representative of my skill as a doodler)

Okay, so I admit to being a doodler even though I’m not necessarily proud of it.  (As you age, you learn to accept the things you cannot change.)  I’ve attended enough meetings over the years to realize it might be a hard thing to eliminate at this point in my life.  If I am running the meeting, you won’t find me doodling.  It’s when I’m not actively involved that my pen starts to wander.  (Doesn’t mean I’m not listening though.)

However, I’m not actually talking about that kind of doodling.

I’m talking about the web tool called Doodle.  It’s a very nifty website that allows you to send out a calendar and have people report their availability for potential meeting dates.  The people who respond don’t even need to sign up for accounts.  They can just go to the website (via a link you provide), type in their name, and click on the dates and times that work for them.  As soon as people start entering their availability, the schedule starts to fill in and everyone to whom you sent the link can visually see the calendar.

I love this.  I set a lot of meetings and getting everyone’s schedules to mesh can be an incredible challenge.  As we move through the building project, I know that meetings will become the rule rather than the exception because it just takes a number of people working together to make the complex manageable.

If you set meetings or events or would like to poll your friends on a topic, you can simply sign up for an account and become an administrator.  It’s easy and intuitive.

I set up a sample for you to see. Just click on the word Doodle here and see for yourself.  Feel free to actually try it, entering a fictitious (but appropriate) name.  I will keep the meeting open for awhile.

Even if you’d never dream of actually doodling, you might find this tool suitable for implementation.  Forgive the name (and the image the word might evoke…especially if you are now visualizing my sample doodle) and see if it can make your busy life just a little bit easier.