A template in the iPhone app. It opens a 8-item checklist under the editable project name Christmas.
How to open itDecide the people first
The list of names is what determines the size of everything else, and it is easy to leave implicit until it is too late to change.
- Everyone you are buying for, written down — including the ones that are easy to remember late.
- Who is agreeing not to, or doing one gift between several people. That conversation is much easier in October than in December.
- How many people are eating, on which day, and who is cooking.
- Who is travelling, since that decides what has to be posted rather than handed over.
- Anything already promised, bought months ago, or still in the cupboard from last year.
The last one is worth a search before any buying starts, because a line nobody has checked is a line that can be bought twice.
Settle the number before the shopping
A project in the app can carry a budget, and Christmas is a reasonable case for setting one: the spending is spread across weeks, across many small purchases, and across more than one person doing the buying.
- One total
- Decide what the whole thing is worth to you once, rather than judging each purchase on its own. Individually reasonable is how a total gets away from you.
- Per name, if it helps
- A rough figure against each name makes the awkward comparisons easier, and stops one gift quietly setting the standard for the rest.
- Food and drink separately
- Easy to leave out of the figure entirely while thinking about presents.
- What has actually gone
- Marking a line as purchased is what keeps the figure honest. A plan where everything is still only planned in mid-December is not telling you anything.
What the app shows. A project keeps what its items are expected to cost apart from what has already been bought, so the figure you look at in December is the one that has gone rather than the one you intended in October. Nothing here pays for anything or watches an account.
The dates that are real deadlines
Some of Christmas is flexible and some of it is not. The parts that are not are the ones worth a deadline.
Anything posted
Cards and parcels going any distance carry the earliest deadline on the list, and it is set by somebody else. Work backwards from the posting date rather than from the day itself.
Food orders and slots
Collection slots, orders from a butcher or a fishmonger, and delivery windows are arranged ahead, and each has a closing date of its own. They are decisions about a date more than about food.
A real tree
It is a decision about a date: late enough that it still looks right on the day, and early enough that collecting or delivering it fits the week it has to fit.
Delivery cut-offs
The last ordering date for delivery before the day varies by retailer and is worth checking rather than assuming. For anything that has to be in a hand on the day, treat that cut-off as the deadline.
Check the loft before the shop
- Decorations
- Easy to buy a second time. Get the boxes down before buying anything, not afterwards.
- Lights
- Test last year’s before deciding they have failed, and count what you have against where you want it. Replacing part of a set may be all that is needed.
- Wrapping and cards
- Easy to buy more of than the list needs, and then store. Both are worth a look in the cupboard before they go anywhere near it.
- An artificial tree
- Already yours, so the line can simply be marked as covered.
Open it as a plan
Everything above works on paper. If you would rather keep it on your phone — with each line carrying its own price, priority, notes, deadline and a link to the thing you found — the iPhone app ships a Christmas template that starts you with a 8-item checklist instead of an empty project.
- Add a project
In the app, tap the + control in the centre of the tab bar. Its accessibility label is “Add a project”.
- Start from a template
The “New project” sheet opens. Use the “Start from a template” row rather than typing a name into an empty project.
- Pick Christmas
Choose the “Christmas” chip. The sheet says how many starter items it will add and pre-fills the project name, which you can edit here.
- Create project
Tap “Create project”. The project opens with its checklist already written, and every line is yours to rename, delete or re-prioritise.
Christmas is the chip in the template picker. The project name it pre-fills uses the same words, and that part is yours to change before or after you create the project.
What the Christmas template starts you with
Suggestions, and Christmas is the template where the part that sets the size of the list — the people you are buying for — is the part you add yourself. The starter lines are the recurring ones; the names are the part only you can write.
- Tree
- Lights
- Decorations
- Wrapping paper
- Cards
- Food & drink
- Gifts
- Crackers
What you can change. Every line is a suggestion: rename it, delete it, or add something the template never mentioned. Priority is one of Urgent, Normal or Can Wait, so nothing has to be deleted to be put off.
Plannli is an iPhone app. Nothing on this page needs it.