I don’t come from a big gift-giving family, so holiday shopping has never been a stressful task for me. I do Secret Santa with my parents, siblings, and their spouses, so I only have to buy one gift. Aside from that, I’ll get something for the little niece and nephews if it jumps out at me, but my husband and I don’t exchange presents, so there’s just not much for me to keep track of.
But this year, I’m adding a more complicated element, and I was absolutely feeling stressed about it. I jumped in with both feet when I decided to do gifts for my marketing clients and PR contacts. All of a sudden, I had a list that was quite literally five times the size of any gift list I’d made previously. I quickly realized I needed a method to keep myself organized, from the packages I’d personalized to the gifts I’d bought to those I’d already packed and shipped.
Enter the “Kanban method.” This is a project management system that was originally developed in high-pressure engineering environments in Japan, but now it’s used worldwide, both for professional organization, as well as personal.
What Is the “Kanban Method”?
The “Kanban method” is an organization and productivity improving method where sticky notes, either physical or virtual, are used to keep track of tasks in a categorization system. It seemed like it could work for keeping my extensive gift shopping organized, and I tapped a productivity coach to give me a little bit more context before I dove in.
Alex Payetta, certified high performance coach and founder at Ritualle, explains, “The Kanban method helps you stay on top of priorities while remaining efficient. While it’s often used for work or project management, it’s also a creative way to streamline your holiday shopping!”
Payetta recommends using a free app like Trello if you’d prefer to go with a virtual option. “Start by setting up a board with columns like ‘To Purchase,’ ‘Pending Delivery,’ ‘To Wrap,’ ‘Wrapped,’ and ‘Gifted,’” Payetta says. She suggests creating a card for each recipient, then adding the ideas directly onto the card. You can shift these around as each gift progresses.
If you decide to go the old-fashioned route, you can use sticky notes and adhere them to a piece of poster, a whiteboard, your fridge, a section of your wall, or any surface large enough to place them into columns and move them around as needed.
How I Used the “Kanban Method” for Gift Shopping
I took Payetta recommendations and applied them to my own list. I prefer physical Post-its to using a Trello board, but I used the same categories. I even used different paper colors for the various categories of person, meaning whether it was a personal contact, a client, or a professional contact.
Because I don’t have a great place to leave out sticky notes for weeks on end, I opted for the smaller sizes, so I could keep them all on one piece of paper, letting me pull it out when it was time to work on gifts and put it away afterwards.
I’m only a week into using the “Kanban Method” for this more-involved gift-giving season, but I’m already feeling as if I have the entire process under control. I’ve placed the first orders for gifts, and I have a system for moving them from purchased to personalized to wrapped to shipped.
I don’t feel like it’s going to fall apart if they’re all moving through at different rates, and that’s in large part because of the Kanban method. I have a visual to see exactly where everything stands, and, if all goes to plan, not a single gift should fall through the cracks. By mid-December, everything will be purchased, wrapped, shipped, and I’ll ready to celebrate a gifting season well done.
