![How to be productive using the Pomodoro Technique [infographic]](https://www.fedracongressi.com/fedra/wp-content/themes/avant/images/blank_blocks_img.png)
For many people, time is an enemy. We race against the clock to finish assignments and meet deadlines.
The Pomodoro Technique teaches you to work with time, instead of struggling against it.
A revolutionary time management system, it is at once deceptively simple to learn and life-changing to use.
Here is what makes it so unique:
As any good event planner knows, there’s never an event where everything goes 100% smoothly. And, if it seems like it does, that’s a great feeling for the planner, but secretly they may know a few areas that are in need of improvement. To ensure success in this area, try being more adaptable to ideas and new situations that come up. If in the past you were more in control of what happened in every single detail of an event, try to loosen up a bit and actually listen to feedback and suggestions. There may be a few golden nuggets in that feedback that could improve your events, and even your planning skills! It’s important to stay open-minded as an event planner – you never know when a disaster can strike, and you may need a plan B or C lined up that you couldn’t think of yourself!
Another area to be successful is to step up your creativity. Most event planners are creative by nature, but deep down we tend to hit a wall from time to time, and need boosts of inspiration to get us back on track! Remember to stay on top of trends, review other events in the industry, listen to attendees and vendors, and then see what worked for you in the past. If you were successful with networking outings, maybe tweak those to become an online meet-up, or smaller in-person meet-ups. Take the feedback given to you after each event, and see in what areas people may want more. This could be anything from different giveaways, session names, event themes, or even taking the food up a notch!
Be NiceThere’s one quality in a successful event planner that everyone notices right away – that’s customer service. Nice event planners are the most successful, and the most popular. Taking that extra step, and going that extra mile for not only event attendees, but also your extended staff, vendors you work with, and speakers is a nice touch. If you think you have slacked in this area, come up with ways to collaborate and check-in more with these folks.
Remember, everyone talks to each other, so the last thing you want as an event planner are clients who were not happy with the way things were handled for them. Always listen, communicate, and have answers in your back pocket to provide.
For one thing, most events have an underlying reason for why they happen, and most of the time, it’s not for you to network. The networking time given at most events is precious and too short for comfort. What’s more is that the reality is, most attendees stumble into these networking times nervous and anxious with no idea where to start.
Fortunately, there is a way around this. Most experienced networkers know how to best network by doing their homework before any event can help you narrow down your best networking targets and save you some scouting time during the actual event. After that, the only thing that matters is the conversation technique.
To help you get into the groove of things, here are a few ways to break the awkward ice and start the conversation flow:
This may not be the most innovative trick in the book, but most of the time, it works. The idea behind this comes from the fact that psychologically speaking, people are very willing to help others. Thus, by opening up a conversation with a request for assistance, you are more likely to get a receptive response.
The actual technique is that if at any point, you find yourself attending the same panel, workshop, or Q&A session with your networking target, be sure to make note of it and catch him or her sometime afterwards. Tap them on the shoulder and apologize for being a bother, then ask him if he had attended the event you both were in.
Inevitably, he will say yes.
That is when you follow up with the lead-in and ask him a question about the content of the session. Something to open up a conversation like, “do you remember what the speaker said about so and so”, or “I was confused about what the speaker said about so and so, did you understand what he meant?”
After stepping into the conversation with this, you can move on to the next step.
This option is better suited for researchers, professors, and people with certain notable accomplishments previously established. To successfully execute this step, you would need to do your own research ahead of time. The concept behind the ego booster is to first introduce yourself, acquire his or her name, then act as though you’ve heard of him or her.
Having prior knowledge of their work, you can say something along the lines of, “are you, by any chance, the author of {####}?” When they reply yes, you can then follow up with how you’ve read their work and found it fascinating and lead the conversation this way.
People are rarely reluctant to talk about their work and you can harbor a positive conversation by being interested in it. After the conversation has reached the right point, you can begin talking about yourself and how you are related to the field.
If your target doesn’t have publications, that’s fine too. Your job to get him to open up is to just ask him questions about himself. The logic is virtually the same: most of the time, people aren’t reluctant to talk about themselves. After you get his name, the next step is to ask him what he does.
The trick here is to not immediately talk about yourself. If he is in a company that makes computers, don’t immediately jump to talking about your own software company. Ask him about his and show your interest. Interjecting a few, “oh, I heard about those, I read that ‘###’ is ‘###’”, would be helpful to keep the conversation flowing. Then, again, after the conversation has reached a good point, you can talk about how you two can help each other.
Conversations, especially with strangers, are never really easy. The key is to relax and keep your ears open for key points in the conversation to ask questions and show interest. What’s really important is that you do your research on their professional profiles and research a little their line of work. That way, it’ll make it easier to keep the conversation flowing.