How to Make a Link Party Tracker

Why I Need A Tracker

As the blog is getting busier and busier I found I was losing track of what linky parties I had attended and those I hadn't and I definitely had no idea anymore of what post I'd linked to which party.

It seems many bloggers use spreadsheets or day planners to keep track of such things. I was relying heavily on email reminders and checking my Linky page to keep up with them.

The problem with that is that my time zone is UTC +8 and a lot of parties don't provide their start time in UTC time but in their own local time, if they provide a specific start time at all.

I find it's easy to make an error when converting time and so parties that said they started on a Wednesday might actually start on a Thursday for me, but I wouldn't go looking for them on Thursday because they weren't on my Thursday list.

Confused? Me too.

I needed to find a solution and I knew a spreadsheet or day planner wasn't going to provide me with everything I wanted.

What I Want From A Party Tracker

The right solution for me needs to:

1. Keep track of the party start time (in my time zone)
2. Keep track of the party end time (in my time zone)
3. Keep track of the name of the party
4. Keep track of the URL of the party
5. Remind me to link up
6. Remind me what I have linked up previously
7. Show me at a glance if I have already linked up to the party for that week 
8. Tell me what sort of links to link up at that party (some are crafts only, some are yarn arts only, some are anything goes etc.)
9. State what the party rules are
10. Show me how many parties were scheduled in a day so that I can allocate time for them in my schedule.
11. Provide access to the party information from any of my devices wherever I am. 
12. Be easy to maintain, or I won't keep it up-to-date and the whole system just won't work. 

So you can see I don't want much from a tracker - just everything!

Why Do I Want All Of That For My Linky Party Tracker? 

Party Start and End Times

Knowing when the party starts means I can try to link up as soon as the party begins, but life doesn't always allow for that. 

Knowing when the party ends means I know if the party is still live and if I can still link up to it if I haven't been able to link up straight away.

The Party Information 

Knowing the ins and outs of a party is important like how to get to the party and what to bring  (link up) before you get there certainly helps to save you time, which will allow you more time to focus on catching up with other party goers.

Knowing the rules in advance is also really helpful so that when you're in a hurry you don't have to search for them amongst all the other party information. 

It's good to be prepared with the right kind of links and the correct amount of links for a party. 

Knowing I need to link to a pinterest pin rather then a blog post before I get to the party means I won't have to change my plan for what I was going to link up or go looking for a new url to link up. 

Likewise I don't want to linkup a craft to a recipe party. I don't want to break the rules, even by accident. This is why anything goes parties are my favourite types of party.  

Past Parties

A lot of parties don't want you to link to something you have linked previously. Now I don't know about you but keeping track of what I've linked up to a specific party for the last 6 months is not something I can just remember. 

What if your trying to give an old post new life and you forgot that you linked it up 5 months ago at xyz parties but not at abc parties however x & z parties say it's ok to relink stuff you've linked previously, but x says only after 6 months and z says after 2 months.

How do you keep track of which of those parties you can link your post to? I want to do the right thing by my party host and observe their requests, so if it starts taking a lot of time for me to manage I'm just not going to attend their party. 

Reminders

I need reminders or I get obsorbed in what ever else I'm doing and the party will be forgotten altogether. No paper solution is going to send me a reminder. 

Accessability & Ease of Use

I want to be able to access the information from my mobile or my tablet and while cloud storage allows you to store spreadsheets they are painful at the best of times let alone on a device with limited screen realestate. I envisage lots of sheets would be needed for each of those parties to track what was linked up when - agggh. Maybe it's just me - I don't like spreadsheets. 

Databases are far more reliable then a spreadsheet pretending it's a database but having access to it from anywhere is more challenging then a spreadsheet. 

So neither spreadsheets or an MS Access style database are suitable electronic solutions for what I want, besides I wouldn't consider either as super easy to maintain.

Party Tracking Solution

I think your getting the idea by now that there is a bit more to a Linky Party Tracker then you might initially think.

Back when I started on my cleaning schedule I set up a google calendar so I could get a realistic idea of how much time I really needed in my day for daily maintenance chores and to get reminders to do them.

Google calendars can be accessed from anywhere you have internet access, all you have to do is log into your account, so accessibility wasn't going to be a problem.

I thought that perhaps the calendar could work for linky parties too. I just had to think about  how it would achieve all the things I wanted from it. I pondered for a while and decided I could make it work. 

I've created a calendar just for linky parties and I've been adding parties to the calendar as I go. If you would like some help with how Google calendars work and want step by step instructions on how to create a calendar I recommend this tutorial.

How To Set Up Your Party Tracker

It takes just a few steps to have all of your party information is in one place.

Step 1 - Add A New Calendar Event.

I click 'add event' to my linky calendar.

I put the name of the party in the event name field.

Step 2 - Set The Times

I calculate the start and end times in my own time zones as best I can and adjust them next time if I need to. There is an option to set time zones but anyone who has daylight savings times know how wrong this kind of feature can be so I prefer to just do it manually. 

Enter the times and dates in the start and end fields.

Set the repeat frequency with an end time of never.

Step 3 - Location

In the event details section there is a location field, I enter the URL of the party here.

Step 4 - Guidelines

In the description field I add the party rules and guidelines, such as

• link type- post or pin 
• link category - recipe, craft  
• how many to link - no more then 2 links 
• link age - new only, or any age just no duplicates  

Step 5 - Link History

Under the guidelines for that party I keep a list of what I've linked up to that party. I type the date and the party number and under that I add the URL or description of my link.

I will also make a note if my post was featured. 

Step 6 - Allocate An Event Colour

This is an important step because this is what helps me to see at a glance if I have linked to the party or not. I'll explain more about that shortly but for now just allocate a colour ( I use a reddish brown). All of my parties get the same colour. 

Step 7 - Reminder

I like to set my party reminders for the start of the party and as a pop up. I only set one reminder but you can set multiple reminders and email notifications too if you like. 

Step 8 - Save 

When you hit save you want to save 'all events'. 

Step 9 - Editing The Party Event

We're almost done.

Every time I attend a party I update my link history and save to all events. This means the whole calendar series now has a record of the links I've just linked up to the party. 

THEN I open the event again. This time I change the colour (I use blue) of the event and I save ONLY THIS EVENT. Now with just a glance at my calendar I know that all the events that are blue I've linked up to, and that all of the events that are reddish brown I haven't. Easy :o)

And that's it. I only have to do steps 1-8 once and then step 9 each time I attend the party and all of my 12 Party Tracking requirements are met.

How do you keep track of your linky parties?

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This post was featured!