Organise any event online for free

What you need: Any web browser Time required: 25 minutes

Organising

a big event – such as a birthday party or anniversary celebration – can be daunting. Zenkit is an excellent new website that lets you create lists – called ‘collections’ – of all the things you need to do to prepare for your event.

After you’ve done that, you can add more comprehensive details to each of these tasks and format them in different ways according to your needs. Zenkit also lets you add images and set reminders for all your upcoming tasks.

STEP 1

Go to www.zenkit.com, click Register at the top right, then enter your details. You’ll need to verify your email address by clicking a Confirm Address link in an email Zenkit sends you. This directs you to the Zenkit website, where you need to log into your account. On the home page, you’ll see a video 1 that describes Zenkit’s features. If you want to assign tasks to other people (you can add five members in the free version), they’ll need to create a Zenkit account. After they’ve done that, you can add them by clicking the Add Member icon 2 , typing their name and selecting the correct autosuggest option. Click the ‘+’ icon 3 to create your first collection.

STEP2

Give your collection a name (we chose ‘Golden Anniversary), then click Create. You’ll now see an Add Item field 1 . Type all the items in your list 2 , pressing Enter after each. You can add up to 2,000 items in the free version. Next, click the List option 3 , where you’ll see three more ways to sort your items - Kanban, Table or Calendar 4 . We think the easiest way to do this is to select Kanban first then, once you’ve added items, select Table (see Step 5). So click Kanban 5 .

STEP3

You’ll see all your items in an unsorted list on the far left. In the centre, you’ll see three sections – Todo, In Progress and Done. To rename a section, click to select it 1 , then click Rename. Drag and drop your items from the list on the far left to the relevant section 2 . To add new items to a list, move your cursor to the bottom of that section, click Add Items 3 , then type your new item. To add more lists, click Add List 4 , then name it. You can reorder items in lists by dragging them up or down, and reorder lists by clicking their titles, then dragging left or right.

STEP4

You can add photos and documents to items by dragging them from your PC and dropping them into the relevant item’s tile. These files appear as thumbnails 1 (you can add up to 1GB worth of files in the free version). To add detailed information to an item in your list, click to select it 2 . You’ll see a pane on the right. Here, you can type a description 3 , select a date for it in the calendar dropdown menu 4 (which is set to US date format by default, but you can change this in your profile page – see Step 10). Click the bell icon 5 to set a reminder. Click in the ‘Assigned to’ field to assign that task to people you added in Step 1. Repeat this step to add detailed information to the other items in your list.

STEP5

After adding detailed information, it’s easy to sort your data quickly. To do that, click Kanban at the top right and select Table 1 . Each item’s Stage (status), Description, Due Date and Assigned To fields appear as columns. You can sort items any column by clicking its header 2 . You can also move columns by clicking and dragging its header right or left. Tick any item 3 you want to highlight. To edit an item’s information, move your cursor to it, then click the Expand icon 4 . This brings up the editing pane on the right. To add more items, move your cursor to the bottom of the table, then click the grey ‘+’ icon.

STEP 6

If a task has to be completed by a certain date, use Zenkit’s Calendar view. Click the Table option, then select Calendar 1 . You’ll now see all your items assigned to the dates you set. You can change the timeline view at the top 2 . If deadlines change, click an item and drag it to a different date. If a task is not time sensitive, drag it to the Unscheduled section 3 . Click any item 4 to display its editing pane 5 .

STEP7

We’ll now show you how to use Zenkit’s other features. The Zenkit icon 1 takes you to its home page where you’ll see your collection(s) and the option to create more. Click the dropdown menu at the bottom of your collection tile 2 . Here, you’ll see a list of your recent changes. Click the Theme tab to change the theme for your collection. Zenkit’s search bar 3 lets you quickly find items in any of your collections. The bell icon 4 displays any reminder notifications. Click your initials 5 to see options to access your profile page (to change date formatting, for example), watch video tutorials and chat with Zenkit’s customer support team. ●