Flexible Summit & Bundle Project Planning for Entrepreneurs with Unpredictable Schedules
If you host online summits or bundles, you already know event planning is a lot. You are managing people, tech, promos, and a hard date on the calendar. At the same time, life keeps moving. Kids get sick, energy drops, clients need you, and your week changes without warning.
That is why event project planning matters so much. It keeps your event moving forward, even when your schedule does not look the same from one day to the next. Still, many traditional project management setups fall apart when your time and capacity change often.
Here’s a realistic way to plan your event projects, stay organized, and keep momentum without burning out.
Why event project planning matters for summit and bundle hosts
When you plan an online event, you are not just building one project. You are running a bunch of mini-projects at the same time, all tied to a launch date. And while the workload can change a lot depending on the scope of your event, it’ll still likely include:
Pitching collaborators (speakers, contributors, sponsors, affiliates)
Tracking follow-up and confirmations
Collecting assets (headshots, bios, links, deliverables)
Tech setup (landing pages, email sequences, checkout, integrations, scheduling tools)
Creating promotional assets (graphics, swipe copy, social posts, promo emails)
Building your launch strategies (timeline, offer stack, pricing, bonuses, urgency plan)
Launching the event (emails, social, partner promos, support)
Hosting the event (live rooms, replays, troubleshooting, attendee support)
Not to mention your post-event promotion that needs planning and prepping too!
Without a clear plan, it is easy to miss key steps. Also, small delays can pile up fast. As a result, you end up rushing the week before launch, which is stressful and usually avoidable.
A good plan gives you a map. It helps you pick the next right task, even when you can only work in short pockets of time.
Why traditional project planning can backfire when your capacity changes
Most project management systems assume you can work in a steady rhythm. They push daily checklists, fixed deadlines, and constant progress. That works great when your energy stays pretty stable.
However, if you are parenting, caregiving, living with chronic illness, disabled, or neurodivergent, your capacity can shift a lot. On low-capacity days, a rigid plan can make you feel behind before you even start. Then the reminders stack up, and the tool that should help you ends up adding pressure.
Besides that, event planning comes with outside factors you cannot control. Collaborators respond late. Tech breaks. A speaker needs a new time. Your kid's school calls. So the plan needs to flex, not snap.
Build flexibility into your event plan (the way you already live)
You already adjust your life constantly. When childcare falls through, you find a backup plan. When you wake up feeling awful, you drop the non-urgent tasks. When someone needs support, you change your day to show up.
Your business can follow those same rules. In other words, your event plan should allow for real life, not fight it.
When you plan with flexibility on purpose, you protect your energy. You also make it easier to work when you do have time, because you are not wasting it deciding what to do next.
My Elastic Planning Method for event project planning
Elastic Planning is a flexible way to plan event projects around your real schedule. It keeps the event moving, even when your weeks look different. Instead of locking yourself into a rigid daily plan, you build a plan that stretches and tightens based on your capacity.
Here is how it works for online summits and bundles.
1) Plan by phases, not by daily tasks
Start with a simple event timeline. Break the work into phases, so you always know what matters most right now.
A common phase outline looks like this:
Phase 1: Collaborator outreach
Finalize topic and event promise
Build your pitch list
Pitch collaborators
Track responses
Phase 2: Confirmations and follow-up
Follow-up sequence
Collect agreements and deliverables
Get headshots, bios, links, and promo details
Phase 3: Tech setup
Build landing page and registration flow
Set up email system and tags
Connect scheduling, recordings, checkout, and delivery
Test the full experience end to end
Phase 4: Promo assets
Speaker or contributor promo kit
Graphics, swipe copy, and email templates
Your own content plan and posts
Phase 5: Launch and host
Launch emails and partner reminders
Support inbox and troubleshooting plan
Hosting plan (live schedule, replays, backups)
Post-event wrap (replay window, upsells, thank-yous)
Because each phase has a clear goal, you can work in small chunks without losing the big picture. The once you’ve got these larger phases mapped out, you can break each one down into it’s individual tasks to be achieved throughout that entire period (vs a daily task list).
2) Choose "minimum progress" tasks for low-capacity days
Some tasks move your event forward even when you have 20 minutes. Which means that even when life take the lead, you can still keep moving foward and avoid your event getting derailed. .
For example:
Send 2 pitches
Send 5 follow-ups
Review one speaker form
Draft one promo email
Test one tech step (like the checkout flow)
Create one graphic template, then reuse it
Then, on hard days, you still get a win!
And on high-energy days, you can tackle heavier tasks like writing the full email sequence or building the event portal. This balance of tasks helps flex with the energy levels you have each day rather than forcing you to push through just because something’s on your to-do list.
3) Use time blocks that match the time you actually have
Instead of planning your week like you have six free hours a day to dedicate to your event (which I bet none of us have!), plan around the real pockets of time you can count on.
Try a simple structure:
15 to 30 minutes: outreach, follow-ups, quick edits, collecting assets
45 to 90 minutes: writing emails, building pages, setting up automations
2 to 3 hours: recording sessions, tech testing, promo batching, launch planning
Quick tip: If you know you’ll be fitting your summit or bundle into the corners of your day, try keeping a running list of tasks by time length. Then you can match the task to the time you have, not the other way around.
4) Build slack into every deadline
Events need deadlines, but your plan should include breathing room. Add buffer time before key dates, especially for anything that depends on other people.
Examples:
Set your collaborator deadline 7 to 10 days earlier than you think you need (I also like adding a second secret “hard” deadline after each due date so I can be flexible with collaborators who get things in late without derailing my plans!)
Finish promo assets before launch week and pre-schedule everything you possibly can.
Be like Santa and check your list - and tech - twice. Better catch hiccups before you have hundreds of people waiting on you!
That buffer gives you space for late replies, tech issues, or a week where you have less capacity.
5) Keep one source of truth, keep it simple
Use one place to track the essentials: dates, tasks by phase, and collaborator status. My Event Planner Pack is perfect for this as you can quickly access everything you need both from your computer and on the go with Notion’s mobile app.
Most importantly, track these items clearly:
Who you pitched, who said yes, who needs follow-up
What assets are missing
What tech steps are complete, what still needs testing
What promo items are ready for partners
When things get busy, you do not want to hunt for details across five places.
Final thoughts
Event project planning is a big part of running online summits and bundles. Still, you do not need a rigid system that assumes you have steady energy and a predictable week.
A flexible plan helps you pitch collaborators, stay on top of follow-up, handle tech setup, create promotional assets, and carry out your launch strategies without crashing. It also helps you fit the work into the time and capacity you actually have, so the event stays on track even when life changes.
