When it comes to planning something with friends, co-workers or family, we default to using our chat app, be is WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram or something similar. Yes our contacts are already there so it's easier to start a conversation, but it's almost impossible to keep the planning on track, organise and review ideas and actually make a decision without daily chats getting in the way.
Does the below screenshot look familiar to you?
We thought so.
Depending on the occasion, it's almost always better to use a dedicated app or website. Here are the top 3 planning apps you can use to make your life easier when planning with a group.
Trip Planning - Tripsy
FREE, with monthly or annual subscription for premium features
One of the nicer looking apps, Tripsy allows you to organise different aspects of your trip (i.e. hotel, attraction, museums), track your itinerary, store relevant documents, and invite your friends so they can contribute as well. Similar to TripIt, it provides flight alerts if you pay for their Pro plan.
Wedding Planning - The Knot
FREE
This might be a bit overwhelming, but it is the most comprehensive app we found that includes a countdown to your wedding, a wedding checklist, budget tracker, dress finder, idea collector, registry suggestions, and more. If your main goal is to organise and plan your wedding, this one hits the sweet spot. It also includes registry and attendance tracking as well.
Flexible Planning App - Multytude
FREE
It's nice to have dedicated apps for all kinds of planning, but it can also get overwhelming. Instead, you may want to use a more flexible app if what you're mainly after is collecting suggestions and ideas from your family, friends and co-workers in a central place.
Enter Multytude, where you can start a private conversation, invite the people with whom you're planning, leverage the conversation cards as organisers (i.e. create a card for hotel suggestions, another for restaurant suggestions for your trip, etc.). Your collaborators can then add their suggestions underneath the appropriate card, making it easy for you to review and make a decision. You can use the same tactic to collect ideas for a wedding, an event or anything else really.
It doesn't have specific occasional features like flight updates, but then we assume you already get flight updates from your airline, so why get another notification? 🤷♀️
As Steve Jobs famously said, "there's an app for that." So instead of suffering in group chats, do yourself a favour and download one of these planning apps to separate your purposeful conversations from your daily chats.
