Setting Goals With a Planner

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Unlike the New Year's Day resolutioners, I am constantly trying to lose weight (hello, roller coaster), budget responsibly, and exercise regularly. 

For me, the resolution doesn't happen once a year on January 1st.

All year long, I am alone at the gym, working toward that goal.

How to Plan for a Multi-Day Event

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Last year, I wrote about Planning a Holiday Week. 

It was a great post, packed with information to help get a busy week under control.

But I've done a much better job this year. So Merry Christmas! 

My gift to you is to teach you how to plan for any multi-day event or hard deadline coming up in your life.

Why I Don't Want a Planner for Christmas

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I don't want a planner for Christmas.

Using a Planner to Thrive in Survival Mode

When I was in college, "survival mode" usually happened about a week before final exams. 

Papers were due. I was out of clean laundry. I had to study. Everything needed to be packed up for break.

Now, the holiday season is much more likely to put me in survival mode. So many plays to attend, gifts to buy and wrap, and illnesses mean that some days only consist of getting through them the best way that I can manage.

Christmas Gifts for People Who Are Impossible to Please

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I'm about to talk about a hypothetical person. (If you are reading this, this post is not about you. Just...um...so we are clear. Not you. Someone else. OBVIOUSLY.)

It's about people who make it IMPOSSIBLE to give them a decent gift. You know THOSE PEOPLE.

The "do you have a gift receipt?" people. Eye roll.

The "oh, how nice" people whose faces look like they are eating cow doo doo while they unwrap the gift. Bless their hearts.

The kid who says, "thank you. My mom says I have to say that even if I hate the gift." Sigh.

You know those people.

21 Epic Elf on the Shelf Ideas for Lazy Parents

Due to circumstances mostly beyond our control, our household ended up with an Elf on the Shelf named John Henry.

He doesn't watch the kids for evidence of naughty or nice behavior. He's just a fun game we play.

And, honestly, even though the *****ing Elf is a pain to move around, we've mostly enjoyed him. (The asterisks are totally nice words. Or naughty words. John Henry doesn't care either way!)

I've compiled the best of John Henry's adventures, along with some of our more revealing Elf Facebook statuses from last year.

Christmas Gift Shopping With Your Planner

I am constantly encouraging you to either create a Christmas planner or use the Project pages in your planner to plan your holidays.

I also almost ALWAYS carry my planner with me.

But in the mall, I get tired of carrying a heavy purse. I want a lightweight crossbody bag instead.

Organizing Christmas Presents

Take a minute to go read this updated post about Organizing Christmas Presents!

I promise it's worth clicking over to read!

Etcetera.

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What to Buy Your Husband for Christmas

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So many of my friends are asking what to buy husbands for Christmas? What gift should I get my husband? Is there a gift guide for husbands?

Live Blogging Thanksgiving

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How do you get your Loyal Readers to tune in to your blog on Thanksgiving Day?

Why, an event, of course!

For years, my Facebook friends have been urging me to write a book about the funny and cool things my kids say. 

In high school newspaper class, we kept all such sayings anonymous and called them "Overheards."

What to Plan in a Planner

People ask me constantly, "what do you even put in a planner?"

Well, lots of stuff.

The Right Planner for Everyone on Your Gift List

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A dedicated day planner user - also known around these parts as a plannerd - might ask, "why would I ever buy a day planner for someone else as a gift?"

After all, if you are a Loyal Reader of Giftie Etcetera, you likely already use a planner tailored to you and your needs. That's the goal, anyway. You understand that a planner is a very personal item.

This year, I'm challenging you to share that love of planners with someone in your life who might either need or truly appreciate it!

Since every plannerd (or potential plannerd) is unique, I'll try to share some interesting planners that you might not know about and the unique aspects of each of these planners with you.

Christmas Gift Guide for Kids Who Are Too Old for Toys

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Every year, we take our kids to Toys 'R Us to make a Christmas wish list. It's always a fun day for them.

My second grader, Loki, made a list that was two pages long (and calculated out to about $1,500 worth of stuff...so, that's NOT happening).

But this year, for the first time, it was different for my older kid, a fourth grader.

He's no longer into toys.

Affordable Gifts for Cubicle Dwellers

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Every year at Christmas time, there is that awkward moment when someone in the office suggests a gift exchange.

Not in? You look like a Scrooge.

All in? You look like a kiss up.

I figured I'd help you out with Christmas gift ideas during this holiday season, so I'll occasionally share ideas, like this Gift Guide for the Obsessively Organized. 

(Don't worry. I'm still writing about planners and organizing most days! That won't end.)

This time, I thought I'd help you out with some inexpensive gift ideas for co-workers or other people in your life who do office work.

It's Time to Start Planning for the Holidays

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I hate it when a store plays Christmas music before Thanksgiving.

I rarely buy a single gift before Black Friday.

I never put up a tree until we have some leftover turkey in the fridge.

Check out the nose on our Cajun St. Nick!

How to Organize Christmas Presents for Delivery

Over the course of December 23rd through 25th, I have several different sets of Christmas gifts to give out. 

I don't know how Santa does it! There are so many gifts all going to different destinations.

I have to have a plan.

For example, I'll visit some friends with gifts, go to a bonfire party with my mom's family on Christmas Eve with gifts for the kids' picked name gift exchange and for my godchild, and exchange with my sisters and their kids after lunch at my parents' house on Christmas Day.

Right now, all of the gifts are wrapped and piled haphazardly under the tree. But on December 23rd, we will separate the gifts into piles and get them ready for delivery.

I'm pretty sure the elves must have a great system in place. So I made a call to the North Pole, and asked for some ideas.

I learned that there are several ways to make this process easier.

Gift Wrap Based on Destination

PRO: If you wrap all gifts headed to mom's house in blue, all the gifts headed to Aunt Charlotte's house in red, and all the gifts that stay home in green, you not only can sort them quickly or have the kids sort them, but you will look as if you carefully coordinated your wrapping paper, even if you secretly used whatever was on clearance last year on the day after Christmas.

CON: You have to keep track of the paper and destination as you wrap. Also, you might run out of one color or style of paper and ruin the plan.

Code on Bottom of Gifts

PRO: If you write a code for each destination (M = Mom and C = Charlotte), you can still sort gifts pretty easily, but not worry so much about running out of a particular paper.

I use numbers, like 23, 24, and 25, that correspond to the date of delivery.

CON: People will ask you what the code means. That's fine if you are a blogger ("don't you read my blog, Grandma?!?"), but might be awkward elsewhere.

TIP: Christmas stickers or different color gift tags are a more subtle way to achieve the same goal.

Code the Gift List

PRO: The code on the list of gifts itself is secret and only you know that the gift to Marge goes out on Christmas Eve.

CON: It takes a lot longer to sort gifts by name and destination only using a list.

TIP: Even though it's an inefficient method by itself, coding the gift list with a simple number for the date that the gift leaves the house and an initial for the house it is headed to helps when wrapping in distinct paper and coding on the bottom of the gifts.

Make Separate Gift Lists

PRO: The gifts can be sorted one trip out of the house at a time.

CON: Just like with a coded gift list, it gets confusing if this is the only method that you use.

Containerize the Gifts

PRO: If the gifts are stored together based on destination, it is quick to get out of the house.

CON: The containers take up space and may not fit under the tree.

TIP: For large numbers of gifts, use laundry baskets to transport them.

My best advice? 

Use several of these tips at once!

I code my original gift list, divide it into smaller lists for each day of delivery, write codes underneath gifts, and use containers to separate out the deliveries.

If you are looking for gift ideas, feel free to check out one of these great gift guides:

Gifts for Men

Gifts of Planners

Gifts for Upper Elementary Kids

Gifts for Cubicle Dwellers and Co-workers

Gifts for the Obsessively Organized

Etcetera.

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Planning a Holiday Week

Holidays are strange little days for my planner. 

Not a ton of appointments, but really important ones like Christmas dinner or our traditional Christmas Eve brunch at a breakfast restaurant. 

Not a ton of tasks, but woe is the person who forgets to bring the 2 year old's gift or the dirt cake.

My normal set-up (monthly appointment pages and weekly task pages) aren't quite enough, but I need more flexibility than my usual daily pages provide.

So, for December 22nd - 25th, I put some blank paper between the weekly section. They are folded back to avoid blocking the normal weekly pages.

I still keep appointments on my monthly pages and normal, non-holiday tasks (there aren't that many) on my weekly pages.

But on my holiday lists, I have deadlines, like cooking the dirt cake and wrapping gifts by December 23rd. I have day of holiday task lists (that repeat yearly), like putting out cookies for Santa and reindeer food, or unwrapping Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. 

I also put a list of all gifts or items that need to be delivered (to Christmas parties or gatherings over the holidays).

Once the holiday is over, these date specific pages go with the rest of the Christmas project pages for reference for next year.

TIP: If you start a new tradition or want to change something next year, this is a good place to note it.

Etcetera. 

Humiliating Humiliation: Mrs. Claus Forgets Her Planner

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This happened this weekend:

Here, let me show you my humiliation a wee bit closer:

Oh, and for extra fun embarrassing embarrassment, I forgot to go to the doctor. Yes, that is the last scratched out entry on today's monthly page. Think they will bill me $50?

I have a good excuse a reason that it happened a lame explanation.

This weekend, Mr. Claus and I (Mrs. Claus, get it???) brought the boys for their annual trip to visit the toy store and make a Christmas wish list.

(By the way, HOLY COW they are not getting that much stuff. Also, Loki's explanation that naughty kids still get gifts, using last year and his own four year old bad behavior as an example, did not inspire in me the dream of obedient little angel children that the Christmas season promises to parents everywhere. And explaining to Ander, age seven, that he was probably right, reindeer don't really fly - but there is truth in every myth and St. Nicholas and Santa's helpers and don't we love the stories of Christmas anyway and those who don't believe don't receive so shut it in front of your kindergarten brother now or Mommy is pulling this car right over young man - was not my most proud moment.)

Anyway, after you excuse my little stress-induced tangent, Mr. Claus and I were bringing the kids to visit the fires of hades local Toys 'R Us North Pole to see where the elves made toys. Only, Mrs. Claus forgot to put extra graph paper in her planner. So Mrs. Claus, who had clearly drank too much Nyquil eggnog, used owl post-it notes. She just jotted things down with no regard for the poor elves who have to read the toy order. Today, Mrs. Claus started to help out the elves and got so busy shopping from the LIST ON A POST-IT instead of her trusty planner - that she forgot about the doctor's appointment. That would have never happened had Mrs. Claus used her planner! Mrs. Claus is probably getting coal for Christmas instead of her extensive Amazon wish list. :'(

I have, of course, fixed the problem.

I revised my Christmas project pages to include a list for each boy and my husband, plus one list for all other Christmas gifts. Using the squares, I wrote in the number of the gift. (Yes, we already have 19 for the children. We never give them toys or anything, really, the rest of the year.) I have a place to write the day in December when the gift will be given. (For example, we give an ornament on December 23rd and PJs every December 24th.) Then I have a column (with a key) for whether the gift is from Mom/Dad, Santa, or in their stocking. I have a place to note the date the gift is ordered, the date received, the date wrapped, and the date it is placed under the tree. I will wrap each gift in certain paper depending on the child, put a sample of that paper in my planner as a key, and add a code (like A11 for Ander's Percy Jackson books) so that I can identify what is in each gift.

Mrs. Claus is getting it together. There might be a Merry Christmas after all.

Etcetera.

Video: Working The System That You Already Have: Christmas Planning In Your Planner

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Whenever possible, I advocate using a system that you already have in place to plan.

For example, if menu planning is working for you when you jot the menu on a dry erase board on the fridge, go for it.

If it's not, consider using a dedicated space on your weekly pages.

I don't see any reason why the holiday season should be treated differently.

(Don't watch the following You Tube video in front of little ones. Safe for work, but involves Santa planning. :) )

Video of Giftie Etcetera's Holiday Planning

After all, planning for Christmas is just another project. And here at Giftie Etcetera, we use Project pages for planning projects. 

Another reason to use your planner for holiday planning, instead of a separate holiday binder, is that your planner always leaves the house with you anyway, so you can do Christmas shopping anytime and anywhere, instead of just if you have your bulky holiday binder with you. 

Also, holiday planner truly only takes a few sheets of planner paper, so it won't bulk up your planner too much. 

During the rest of the year, you can file away those pages, as there is no need to carry holiday planning pages with you.

Tip: Only buy purses or bags that fit your planner.

What works for me, using the system that I already have in place, is to make a Holiday Planning project (which includes Thanksgiving), to use my monthly calendar for dated events, and to note due dates on my weekly task lists (such as having all gifts wrapped by the night before the night before Christmas).

TIP: Use last year's holiday plan to create this year's project pages.

Some ideas for what you might include in a Holiday Planner:

*menus

*Elf on the Shelf ideas

*holiday traditions (Some of our favorites include an ornament chosen by the kids each year that will leave the house for them for their first college Christmas tree, wrapping Christmas pajamas for Christmas Eve morning so they look cute in Christmas morning in the pictures, and burning bonfires on the Mississippi River levee on Christmas Eve to show Papa Noel where to fly.)

*decorations

*gifts purchased list

*gift ideas list

*kids' wish lists

*spouse gift list (covered in a post-it with a "Do Not Peek" message)

*your own wish list

*cut-out swatches of wrapping paper for a gift code list of who is getting what and where they are receiving the gift so that you don't have to write names on gifts

TIP: Wrap presents based on where they are headed. Wrap in green for staying home, red for Grandma's house, and blue for gifts that need to be delivered, for example. 

Paste little swatches of the wrapping paper on the gift code list so that, when it's time to leave for Grandma's house, all you have to do is grab all the red boxes.

TIP: Use only Santa wrapping paper (or snowmen or reindeer) for Santa gifts. 

In my house, one kid gets the red paper and one the green, all with Santa on them, so that I don't have to write names on the gifts (and risk the second grader recognizing my handwriting).

Enjoy the video. A special shout out to my facebook friends who helped me improve the lighting in my videos. You know who you are. :)

Etcetera.