So Much To Do!
Christmas can be a hectic time of year and for me this one is especially busy. Having moved house last year we finally have the space to host a proper family Christmas - something I'd happily avoided when there seemed to be an abundance of parents or siblings to take on the task. But no more, this year it's my turn and I've quickly realised I'm out of my depth.
When you attend a Christmas Day lunch/dinner you're only seeing a slither of what's going. Yes, you see the food come out, the drinks etc. but thats the tip of the iceberg.. what you're seeing is the result of weeks of planning. The moment this realisation hit me was when, at a cursory glance, I realised we didn't own enough plates and cutlery for everyone to sit down and eat together. The list has started to grow and grow - it's like planning a limited guest-list Wedding.. but with more presents and less outside catering.
Plan Plan Plan
All the products on my site have one thing in common, they come from spreadsheets that I use day-to-day and regularly myself. They have been smartened up and adapted for widespread use but essentially they are the spreadsheets I have created and refined over the years. The most versatile of these is the To Do List and Task Planner:
This is the spreadsheet I use the most from my collection. I use it at work, at home, for planning holidays and now for planning my first hosted Christmas.
Now that I have the first few steps in the Planner at least I can start to see what needs doing - although Christmas itself spans way more than just feeding everyone so I decided that everything can go in the planner, Gift Buying, Santa Visits, Christmas Card jobs.. the lot.
It's easy enough to filter by category and I find the most productive feature is assigning myself tasks to complete for today, without this I'd have a lovely list of things to do but nothing would get done.
A Problem Shared..
My wife and I find that for events like Christmas (or planning for a holiday) we both need a view on whats going on.
Excel can manage this no problem but I find it's where Google Sheets really shines. The To Do List and Task Planner is availble for Google Sheets as well - that way you can collaborate on a set of tasks and get the job done quicker.
You can also compete on who can check off the most tasks.. if that's your thing ;-)