Christmas Trigger List/Check List

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Bellaisa

Registered
Hi - to help myself next year, I put together a quick Christmas trigger list/check list while all this is fresh in my mind. Whew! It is a lot when you write it all down - which makes it very important to remember the "why" in the holidays.

Thought I'd share the more generic parts of it in case others want to use it as a base for thier own list.

I'd love to hear how others might be using GTD to manage all the wonderful holiday "stuff" we all have going on right now.

Christmas Checklist

Prepare budget/plan out projects
* talk with husband - who does what and when? which of this do we want to do this year

Christmas gift wrapping supplies
* tape
* paper
* tissue
* bags
* to/from cards
* shipping and shipping supplies

Gift list
* family
* friends
* co-workers
* children's friends and teachers
* stockings/stocking stuffers
* angel tree
* errand list
* on-line

Cards
* cards
* stamps
* photo
* write letter
* prepare list/check addresses
* print, stuff, label

Decorations
* Indoor decorations/tree
* Outdoor decorations
* check lights ahead of time
* music
* firewood
* candles

Prepare for company - houseguests - do you need to get linenes, towels,

Holiday meals/thanksgiving/pot lucks/parties
* whose house
* who brings what
* recepies
* serving pieces
* table settings
* clothes for self/kids
* camera/camcorder - charge, bring

Special Activities/traditions -
* home -
* school
* church
* work
* community
* traditions
* camera/camcorder - charge, bring
* thanksgiving
* new years eve/new years

Christmas photo
* clothes for kids
* haircuts for kids
 
A

ameasha

Registered
This is a great idea! I realized, for example, that I need to tickle myself to start shopping much earlier next year. I live in Florida and find myself waiting for it to get cold before I start Christmas shopping, but that can take a LONG time!
 
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jmarkey

Guest
Thanks for posting your list. I am sure that it will give me some ideas for creating my own list.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Dec.26th thru Jan.10

There's quite a few items on your list that I complete immediately after Christmas when all the decorations and wrapping paper and holiday shipping supplies are half price.

And later, in January, when plenty of stores reduce whatever's still unsold from their holiday inventory, prices are further slashed to at least 75% off retail -- and sometimes even 80-90 percent.

Oftentimes, there are some VERY good deals on what was initially very pricey merchandise -- so pricey that it doesn't even sell at half price, but becomes quite appealing, LOL, when it's only 10-15% of its original high-buck price.

I've done this for years & years & years --- so, nowadays, the idea of having to prepare for the Holidays starting in mid-November is NOT anything I'd ever like to do.

In fact, having a huge supply of that stuff neatly packed away in the attic, ready to come downstairs to wrap the gifts and decorate the house is one certain way to reduce one part of Holiday stress to a big ZERO.

Also, I never worry about buying "too much" when the sale is *really* super duper ---- just think of how many places would appreciate a donation of gift wrap next year -- there's dozens of such charitable organizations in my area.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
is it that time of year already!

:D

Seriously useful checklist. Thanks.
 
B

Bellaisa

Registered
Ameasha - I've got the same problem. I live in beautiful Phoenix where it can take until well into December before it even gets chilly (poor me!). It feels strange to think about Christmas when it is 82 out, but I need to trigger myself earlier than that.

Grateful - You reminded me of something important. I like to hit the day after Christmas sales to get gift wrap, etc., but there have been a few times when Christmas rolls around the next year and I have forgotten what I bought and end up buying stuff I don't need. So I need to add "inventory supplies" to my list before I try to shop for all that. Or maybe remind myself "you don't need cards, tape, etc." Neater storage would help, too!

My gift shopping skills are not - shall we say - brilliant. So, I keep in my notes gifts ideas for specific people, occasions (baby shower gifts, etc.) and I have some great gift idea web pages book marked, but I almost forgot I had them!! So I need a new line on the checklist "Check gift ideas lists/web sites".
 
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AMS

Guest
This is great! I've done it for a couple of years now as well. Something I've done to help me remember what I've bought at the after-Christmas sales etc. is that I start a Christmas Next Year project that stays on Someday/Maybe until fall of the following year. I just copy it all from my Christmas This Year active project, add the stuff I got at the sales, and add new gift ideas throughout the year. I also keep a record of what I bought people for this year, so I don't repeat it (as I've been known to do once or twice). After the first time I entered the data, most of it just becomes copying and pasting into the next year.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Bellaisa said:
..... Grateful - You reminded me of something important. I like to hit the day after Christmas sales to get gift wrap, etc., but there have been a few times when Christmas rolls around the next year and I have forgotten what I bought and end up buying stuff I don't need.

So I need to add "inventory supplies" to my list before I try to shop for all that. Or maybe remind myself "you don't need cards, tape, etc." Neater storage would help, too!

My gift shopping skills are not - shall we say - brilliant. So, I keep in my notes gifts ideas for specific people, occasions (baby shower gifts, etc.) and I have some great gift idea web pages book marked, but I almost forgot I had them!! So I need a new line on the checklist "Check gift ideas lists/web sites".
Click to expand...

LOL --- I have a huge selection, more than enough lovely brand new BABY/shower gifts, all safely stored away in the attic - simply awaiting the next time I need one. I never HAVE to go to the store for shower gifts -- although I would if my stash of such was so low that I felt I didn't have one that the new mother might really like.

Do you have a "tickler" folder --- I suggest that you do your inventory in late October for all the supplies.

And THIS year, at the sales, simply pick up MORE than enough for the next TWO-YEARS ----- anyway, that's the technique that I finally used to successful get myself to remember that I had more, waaaaay *more* than enough of that stuff, so I never buy it when the season is early and it's still full priced.

The reason I suggest OCTOBER is that then you can simply concentrate on Thanksgiving festivites, and simply give no more thought to the giftwrap, decorations, shipping supplies, etc -- not until you're all finished with this years wrapping & decorating.

Also one year, I guess it was two years ago, I came across a store where the prices were so slashed that there were almost no items which cost more than one-nickel or one-dime. I went way overboard, and then the next mid-October I got a bunch of addresses for deployed troops over at http://www.anysoldier.com/wheretosend

I send several dozen boxes of holiday cards overseas to deployed soldiers.... making sure they arrived in early November, as the military p.o. likes them to finish up their holiday mail back home by mid-November.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
AMS said:
This is great! I've done it for a couple of years now as well. Something I've done to help me remember what I've bought at the after-Christmas sales etc. is that I start a Christmas Next Year project that stays on Someday/Maybe until fall of the following year. I just copy it all from my Christmas This Year active project, add the stuff I got at the sales, and add new gift ideas throughout the year. I also keep a record of what I bought people for this year, so I don't repeat it (as I've been known to do once or twice). After the first time I entered the data, most of it just becomes copying and pasting into the next year.
Click to expand...

I'll have to give some thought to this system of yours. Without any system, and NO note-taking, whatsoever, I always have enough of everything that I never have to buy more than maybe three or four gifts.

However...... although I always have all the items I need, and occasionally MORE than enough, and must store for the following year, I've simply never tracked it, as you're suggesting and might be a nice addition to the process I follow.
 
B

Bellaisa

Registered
[quote="Grateful
Do you have a "tickler" folder --- I suggest that you do your inventory in late October for all the supplies.
.[/quote]

Grateful, wow, you are quite the resourceful person.

Regarding the "tickler", yes I have one (love it); however, I have a different method that I like better for handling recurring annual things like holidays/birthdays and tasks like scheduling an annual physical. I've created a note in my palm for each month of the year and put those reminders there. These get checked during my weekly review as needed.

October is what I had in mind - I have a note in my October list to go over my Christmas list. It may still be over 100 degrees here then so I won't be in a ho-ho-ho frame of mind, but I'd like to do more on the front end next year.

As an aside, everyone is different - to some extent I LIKE being out in the Christmas throng and some people LOVE that last minute crowd scene (it is a litlle like voting by mail - some poeple love to do that (easier/calmer), but some people find the experience of going to the polls gratifying).
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Re: Christmas Trigger List/Check List

Bellaisa said:
Hi - to help myself next year, I put together a quick Christmas trigger list/check list while all this is fresh in my mind. Whew! It is a lot when you write it all down - which makes it very important to remember the "why" in the holidays.

Thought I'd share the more generic parts of it in case others want to use it as a base for thier own list.
Click to expand...

I am very pleased that you posted this topic. I'm very new to GTD, and had to put all that down, as the Holidays loomed nearer and nearer. Although I do have a definite organization already - which shines in comparison to many others around me, the fact is that due to your posting, I started examining my process ---- and realized that NEXT YEAR, I firmly want a "GTD-Christmas."

I've been totally uncognizant of HOW MUCH STUFF I've got stored in my head, which is ... absolutely ridiculous -- I've got better things to do with my mind than year after year after year, devote 99.99% of my brain cells during Nov/Dec to activities of the last week of the year.

I'm hoping to compile a Project List with accompanying NA's for ALL-OF-THIS.....

And mind you, others look at ME as being organized and finished so soon, etc/etc/etc.

I'm really glad I have a new lens through which to view holiday preps this year --- as really, there are scads upon scads upon scads of minituae and miscellania --- surely a superb way to utilize the framework of GTD.

Thanks again!
 
B

Bellaisa

Registered
Re: Christmas Trigger List/Check List

I'm very new to GTD, and had to put all that down, as the Holidays loomed nearer and nearer. Although I do have a definite organization already - which shines in comparison to many others around me, the fact is that due to your posting, I started examining my process ---- and realized that NEXT YEAR, I firmly want a "GTD-Christmas."

I've been totally uncognizant of HOW MUCH STUFF I've got stored in my head, which is ... absolutely ridiculous -- I've got better things to do with my mind than year after year after year, devote 99.99% of my brain cells during Nov/Dec to activities of the last week of the year.
Click to expand...
This is one of the beauties of GTD - you now have a place to hold all that information that is in your head. It only takes a few mintues to do a "brain dump" and make a list and create some sort of of trigger to get you to look at it at the right time. I went through a similar process last summer with vacations. I have lots lists for reoccuring projects at work. It is a relief to not have to do the work of remembering all of this.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
One thing I am really understanding this year is why the majority of people procrastinate and put off until the last moment so many different things for the Holidays.

This Last Week of The Year provides an archetypal example of all possible "Work fills the available time....."

Although I am not even finished with my first reading of GTD, its influence upon me was such that I was totally FINISHED, all prepared for this weekend - as of several days ago.

I was AMAZED to see this "spare week" of non-hectic, no last-minute ANYTHING arise at what is typically the busiest days of the year.

There are innumerable MORE-things that I of course could do --- but I chose NOT to, and instead am starting my inventory of all items on hand -- and following a number of ideas & tips offered in this thread.

Last night I had a few minutes to randomly open up GTD, and am relieved that my newfound preoccupation during my daily life of asking, "WHY am I doing this?" is a normal outgrowth of following GTD. . .

I'm still amazed with the Conscious Deliberation that GTD spurs during my waking day -- and, frankly, pretty amazed with myself, that with SPARE TIME, during this week, that I don't even feel the urge to do something like, "Oh, let's whip up a couple hundred dozen Christmas cookies..." or some such utterly unneccessary holiday activity.

It seems that the tenor of Modern Life somehow urges us to pile up unneccessary chores, on top of our already frantic schedules -- but although there are a myriad of possible 'extra' things that I have time to do for next weekend, I REFUSE to permit myself to get caught up in that particular whirlwind of meaningless extraneous activity.

Next year, I want to be DONE before mid-December, LOLOL, to see what THAT feels like.

This is all so strange, to NOT have my life bestrewn with dozens of last minute "must-do's."
 
T

TPorter2

Registered
GTD has really helped me with the holdiays this year. I started my gift list early, and I kept it in my Palm which is always with me. First, I entered everyone's name who I had to buy for and then brainstormed ideas. Once I had bought the gift(s) for the person, I put a single asterisk next to their name. When it was wrapped, they got another asterisk. When it was given, a third asterisk. This made it easy to scan the list and see who I had to buy for and what I needed to wrap and who was completely done. I noticed a tendency to think I needed to buy a gift for someone when I already had, which means I couldn't rely on just my memory and I actually saved some money with this method. I have never been this far ahead in the game at this point, or felt this relaxed. I can bake and have fun, thanks to GTD!
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Tickler List

The Christmas tikler one is awesome, are there others for anything, routines, dinner parties, cragt projects, aany kindor a place to find others?
 
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