7 Organization Apps for Church

kamil_hopeware — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 09:59:47 +0000

Being productive every week can be a struggle when good processes aren’t in place and being organized is the first step in being extremely productive. If you work in a church then you understand the importance of staying focused and organized every day….because Sunday is always coming (whether you are ready or not).

During my time managing the SALT Conference I have found several apps that have been very beneficial to our SALT team. Read on to see some apps that we believe will be helpful to your church team.

Evernote

This app is like my personal assistant and I love that it syncs across multiple devices. I use it for note-taking in my weekly team meetings, when I have thoughts or a creative idea that needs to be “flushed” out. I also use it as a tool for helping me debrief after an event so that I can keep all my thoughts in one place. In addition, I have a document where I keep a running list of books and articles that I want to read, and by list I mean links. Makes it so easy!

Trello

This is one app that I am familiar with but I can’t say I have extensive knowledge of it. This is a collaborative, project management tool that allows anyone within the group to have the ability to see where a project is at any time. Trello is a highly visual project management app which is probably my favorite feature. You start with a project, then you create lists or categories within that project and from there you create cards. The cards would be the individual task associated within the list and they are versatile because you can add many elements to the card and fluid because you can move them around from one list to another etc.

Asana

This is another collaborative project management similar to Trello. The biggest difference is how the two apps layout projects. Asana is very similar to most Project Management systems and from my very “unscientific” findings seems to be the “go to” for managing projects outside of Trello.

Dropbox

I am going to bet you are probably using dropbox or at the very least familiar with it. We use dropbox EVERYDAY. At SALT we have a process that documents move through. Evernote is for thoughts and ideas, Google drive is used for collaborative documents that need to be shared. Lastly, we use Dropbox to store our final documentation. This is where we keep final contracts, conference book pdfs, marketing pieces, video and photo backups.

CamScanner

Basically this app is a portable scanner. I use this all of the time. As a conference director I can tell you this app has been a valuable resource. I deal with speaker contracts, hotel contracts, catering contracts etc. I can take a picture with app, turn the picture into a pdf (or jpg), crop the document and email directly from the app. It is fast, easy and highly portable.

30/30

I can’t say that I have used this app, but I know a couple of people that love it. This app breaks down your day into half-hour blocks of time, making it easier to get things done. According to studies, keeping the time limited to 30 minutes will enhance productivity and keep you focused on the task at hand.

Google Drive

This is probably the king of productivity apps. Why do we love it? It’s highly collaborative, which is a necessity with our SALT team. I especially love the search option which makes finding documents and sheets so easy from my phone (as long as I give the document a searchable title).

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The “How To” of Curating Great Ideas

kamil_hopeware — Tue, 30 Oct 2018 09:59:58 +0000

You know what is incredibly frustrating?

Feeling like everyone else has the next big idea…before me. I typically ask myself, “How do they come up with ideas?”and “What am I doing wrong?”

I’ve always wanted to be the guy with the ideas. The guy that was able to find cool concepts and bring them to the table in a creative meeting and be able to flush them out. However, without a system for the ideas that I came across on a daily basis there really is no hope for remembering everything.

I had to become a curator. But how?

At a recent conference, I had the opportunity sit in on one Luke McElroy’s classes Curating Great Ideas. Luke shared many options on best practices when curating great ideas and something clicked…. I’m the type of guy that likes systems and processes, and I don’t have time to sit and “curate” all day. I realized what I needed was a “process of curation.” I needed to figure out how to pick out the things that worked for me and put them into practice.

After taking many notes I was able to identify two things that I could put into practice. Two things that were simple and my best shot at making this work. Those two were Aggregation and Organization.

Aggregation

As you are sitting there reading this, look around. What around you inspires you? Is it the color of the walls, is it a texture in the flooring. Is it the view out your window. Just sit back and take it all in. Aggregation by definition is about pulling things together into a cluster. It is all about gathering; about collecting. Take pictures, write a note to yourself, jot down the color, pin something, bookmark it, do whatever you have to do so you have that piece of information. Gather everything you can; everything that inspires you; everything that you can build upon.

Organization

This second part is where it gets good but it is also where most people fail. You may be scared of the word “organized” because thoughts of file cabinets and flow charts become front and center. Don’t fear, most of the organizational tips are things you are probably using on a daily basis. So it should be fairly simple. Here are two of my favorite “go tos” when curating great ideas.

Evernote

Evernote has so many benefits and can really help you organize your ideas. Here are just a few….

Can be used across multiple devices (phone, iPad, computer etc)
Tagging – this is useful if an idea could belong to different categories. So instead of having to duplicate the note and put into multiple folders (i.e. Christmas stage design idea or Easter stage design) you can tag the note with “Christmas” and “Easter” and search via tag.
Optical Character Recognition – Basically it can read the text on a picture and make it readable and searchable within Evernote.

You can say what you will about Pinterest but the designers of the site have made it simple. The platform gives the user an effective way to catalog and organize quotes, pics, textures, websites and anything else you need to remember all in one place. Plus it is cloud based and collaborative.

So, how does this relate to what you’re doing? Everyone is involved in something. Everyone is being influenced and influencing others. Everyone, whether they will admit it or not, wants to be the idea guy or girl. They want to be the person who has the answers. It’s critical to take the time to notate, pin, organize, and collect your thoughts, concepts, and ideas in order for them to come to reality.

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evernote Archives - SALT Community

7 Organization Apps for Church

30/30

The “How To” of Curating Great Ideas

Aggregation

Organization