I’m convinced that not knowing what gift to buy someone comes down to a series of missed moments.

For instance…

Have you wandered through a cute shop or scanned the latest deals online and said, “Oh, this makes me think of so-and-so”?

Even better (or should I say worse!) you overhear a family member talk about something they lack. “You know, it would be really nice to have [INSERT ITEM HERE]” they say in passing while you nod and agree, but don’t open your Notes app to capture it.

These are prime gift idea opportunities presented on the shiniest silver platter.

But if you’re like me, you won’t remember them if you don’t have some way to write down, organize, and store that information for later!

Our brains process so much every day. They’re powerful, but they don’t remember everything.

So if we don’t keep detailed lists of gift ideas throughout the year, we’re going to forget them. Which causes a bout of pre-birthday or pre-Christmas panic as the big day approaches.

Take a deep breath. There’s no need to print off an Amazon gift card at the last minute. Unless, of course, your recipient would really love that gift!

This incredible tool will capture and organize every gift idea that comes your way. You can define a gift budget per recipient, see a real-time summary of what you’ve spent and how much you have left to spend, and maintain a history of gifts purchased year after year so you never forget what you bought mom in 2023!

The Ultimate Christmas Gift Planner (inside Notion!)

As much as paper planning still holds my heart, analog tools are not always the best way to stay organized around the holidays, especially when it comes to gift giving. We take our smartphones with us everywhere these days so they’re easy to reference at the store when we’re shopping for gifts!

In the past, I’ve used secret Pinterest boards to collect ideas and Google sheets to track my gift budget, but last year, I upgraded my organization system into an all-in-one Christmas gift planner for Notion.

Let me take you on a little tour!

Psst… the video below goes over the entire Christmas Planner, but if you just want to checkout the gift tracking portion, you can skip ahead to minute 7:00.

The Christmas Gift Planner is divided into a few different sections:

1. Gift Recipients + Budget—define a budget for each person and see all gifts you’ve purchased for them in the current year.
   
2. Gift List—drop all your gift ideas, add purchase dates and the actual cost, and see what gifts you have left to wrap.
   
3. Quick Links—navigate to other related pages (like stocking stuffers and a Black Friday sales tracker!)
   
4. Button Actions—use one-click buttons to easily add a new recipients and/or gift.
   
5. Budget Dashboard—keep an eye on this notification center for real time updates of your overall gift budget and how much you’ve spent so far.

The Christmas Gift Planner is incredibly robust, but also really intuitive to use. Even beginner Notion users will find the template easy to navigate!

But if you ever get stuck, you can always reference the in-depth instruction guide that comes with the planner and/or pop into our Nerdy About Notion community to find the support you need. The planner gives you an automatic invite into our club.

Ready to explore each of these planner areas in more detail?

1. Gift Recipients + Budget

When you add a new recipient to your list, you can categorize them as either a family member, friend, co-worker, or a completely new category. This planner is very customizable!

All family members will show on the Family tab, while everyone else shows on Other. Since most of us have more family members to buy for than any other category, this helps organize our recipients in lists that are more easily manageable.

Each recipient has their own clickable page to keep track of all the information you need to shop for the perfect gift for them—a delivery address, notes, etc.

You can add gift ideas to this page throughout the year (no more hunting for that brilliant idea you had in May for the book lover on your list!). And if you love creating handmade treasures, track the status of DIY gifts you may be working on in this section as well.

You’ll also avoid gift duplicates! A handy built in feature lets you track your gift-giving history for each person by each year seamlessly, ensuring each present counts without any accidental repeats.

But one of the absolute best things?

This planner takes all the hard work out of tracking your budget. As you shop and record the gifts you’ve purchased, the Christmas Planner will automatically tell you how much you have left in your budget.

See those green circles and red X’s? They give you a visual representation as to whether you’re staying within budget (or not!)

This eliminates the need to calculate numbers on the go or accidentally go over what you originally panned to spend.

2. Gift List

In this section, you’ll see three different tabs to organize your gifts.

The Idea tab is especially helpful if you don’t want to rely on memory or scattered notes. This feature streamlines the process of brainstorming and organizing potential gifts. (But if you’re struggling with ideas for some of those hard-to-shop for people in your life, this post with hundreds of holiday gift ideas that won’t break your budget can help!)

Just add all your ideas to create individual, clickable entries.

Then, add more specific information like the item’s cost or any notes you want, such as links to where you plan to purchase each gift. You can easily assign gift ideas to one or more names on your recipient list and the cost will evenly distribute among the selected recipients, maintaining an accurate budget view.

Once you buy a gift and assign a purchase date, the gift status shifts from “idea” to “purchased” and your gift will automatically move to the Need to Wrap tab. Then it’s time to turn on a Hallmark holiday movie and start wrapping!

3. Quick Links

While you’re clicking through the gift tracker, you’ll spot a couple of handy quick links on the side. These not only showcase some additional sections, but also make it a breeze to access all the recipients you’ve added.

For example, you can double-check your list or swiftly add addresses and gift ideas for specific folks.

But that’s not the only page that will come in handy.

Stocking Stuffer Tracker

Just like the gift planner, the stocking stuffer tracker does the same job but for those cute little stocking treats.

It lets you track them by person, showing your total stocking budget and spending, just like with regular gifts. You can even split the costs among different folks, and it does the math to keep your budget in check.

The stocking budget is also separate from your main gift budget, so it is very easy to make sure you aren’t spending too much simply on little stocking gifts.

There’s even a little list of ideas to get your creative juices flowing. But guess what? You can totally edit and add your own ideas whenever inspiration strikes throughout the year. If you need more ideas, I’ve got you covered with these 50 fun and affordable stocking stuffers your family will actually love!

Black Friday Tracker

Nothing beats scoring a sweet deal on something you’ve been eyeing for a long time. If you’re into keeping tabs on those major sales throughout the year, the Black Friday Tracker has your back.

It’s your go-to space to jot down the deals you’re watching, and the cool part? When you enter the full price and the sales price, the planner tells you the discount on each item to make sure you’re getting the best deal possible. Whether you prefer a list view or want to check out the deals by store, this section has you covered.

Once the sale madness is over, a quick archive button hides all those deals from the main view. But, you can still peek at when the best deals for your go-to items went down by hitting up the “archive” tab and check the sales price year-to-year if you enjoy those kinds of little nerdy facts.

5. Button Actions

Clickable buttons add a lot of ease and functionality to the Christmas gift planner.

Quickly add a new recipient gift, or stocking stuffer in one click. Each entry will end up exactly where you need it to! You can also record expenses like wrapping paper, bows, and ribbon so you know exactly how much you spent on supplies.

Surprise! There’s More!

This Christmas Gift Planner goes way beyond a primary gift and budget tracker. Even though that is probably my favorite part of the entire planner, there are even more pages and trackers to create a wonderful holiday without stressing about the details.

In addition to Christmas gift organization, you’ll also have the ability to:

• Manage your holiday card list. Check off who you’ve received cards from and track who you need to send them to.
• Create a list of planned holiday activities with all the crucial details (dates, locations, and even purchase information if needed). These will also appear in the calendar view so you can make sure you don’t accidentally double book your precious pre-holiday hours.
• Plan your menu with shopping and baking supply lists, along with a budget specific to each meal or holiday party.
• Organize holiday decor shopping lists and take inventory of stored items to make the most of sales without rummaging through storage boxes.
• Track the cost of all holiday-related expenses and manage spending categories so you always know whether you’re under or over budget.

I promise this all-in-one Christmas Planner is going to be your best friend throughout the holidays!

Instead of feelings stressed about managing all the little details, you can rely on The Christmas Planner to do most of the work for you.

It may even inspire you to get a head start this year!

But most of all, you can focus more of the joy of giving and give yourself permission to actually celebrate the holidays this year without worrying about how you’ll pull them off.

You’ve got this!

Disclosure: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. Read my full disclosure policy here.

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