Who wants to be spending ages on stressful Christmas shopping? Not us, so we have devised this kick-ass Christmas Gift Planning Guide to; getting it done, getting it done well and getting it done quickly.<\/p>\n
You will need creativity and commitment, so let’s get started.<\/p>\n
Yes, whatever time of the year you are reading this, start now.<\/p>\n
The post Christmas sales are always a good place to stock up on wrapping paper and gift tags so you really can start at any point.<\/p>\n
Start thinking about your really difficult relatives, they might need months of thought before the perfect present comes to mind.<\/p>\n
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If this all sounds a bit “project managementy” we make no apologies. It will help you during the process.<\/p>\n
Define what you want the end to look like. Try to use SMART goals e.g. I want to;<\/p>\n
Sit and make a list of everyone who you will be buying a present for.<\/p>\n
Now be brutal. Just because you think you should buy all these people a gift, does this really make sense? Do they buy you one back? Would it be better if you just sent a card?<\/p>\n
Against each name put a sum of money that you expect to spend. Don’t forget stocking fillers.<\/p>\n
Add up the total of the amounts for each person – what is your total?<\/p>\n
Go back to your goals in step two, is the total more than the total you want to spend?<\/p>\n
If so, consider dropping people off the list or spending less per person.<\/p>\n
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Now is the time to think about what each person might want.<\/p>\n
Use our gift lists to help you. We specialise in gift ideas by hobby or interest, so browse our pages.<\/p>\n
The first thing to think about here are friends and relatives abroad or far away. What are the last posting days for their gifts? Will you be seeing them before or after Christmas? Do you need to act now to ensure their gifts arrive?<\/p>\n
Next think about your wrapping supplies or wrapping service;<\/p>\n
There is truly nothing worse than wrapping 25 presents at midnight on Christmas Eve and then running out of supplies. (Been there, got that t-shirt).<\/p>\n
It is now time to implement your plan.<\/p>\n
Bought a present? Wrap it and tag it.<\/p>\n
Seeing a friend? Ask for gift ideas or buy them lunch.<\/p>\n
Seeing an acquaintance? Ask if you can skip gift swapping this year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the run up to Christmas check back to your plan regularly, say once a week. Are you on track?<\/p>\n
If not, what do you need to do to get back on track?<\/p>\n
How is your budget holding up?<\/p>\n
The key to success next year is to spend 10 minutes thinking about what went well and what didn’t go so well.<\/p>\n
Keep your gift lists so that you do not repeat gifts next year. Also keep the lists so that you do not have to re-think everything from scratch next year.<\/p>\n
Did our kick-ass Christmas Gift Planning Guide help you to a stress-free and efficient gift buying Christmas? We hope so.<\/p>\n
See you next Christmas…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kick-ass Christmas Gift Planning Guide Who wants to be spending ages on stressful Christmas shopping? Not us, so we have devised this kick-ass Christmas Gift Planning Guide to; getting it done, getting it done well and getting it done quickly. You will need creativity and commitment, so let’s get started. Step One – Start now … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":934,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/929\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inspiredgiftideas.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}