Workflowy as a Gift Buying List

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December 11, 2013

This is a guest post by Mike Dariano. If you’d like to contribute a guest blog post, just email your idea to blog@workflowy.com

‘Tis the List Making Season
The season of gift giving is upon on and if you’re anything like me your list of naughty and nice neighbors and nieces is far from finished.  One of the best WorkFlowy features is the ability to see things from a macro and micro level.  In looking at my list from the big picture I can see who I still need to buy gifts for and zooming in, what those gifts are.  

How to Get Started
Start by making a List based on either the store you’re shopping at or the person you’re buying for.  Our family is in three different gift exchanges this year; an adult but you don’t know who, an adult and you know what they want, and a pair of children and you know what they want.  

To get started on my own organization, I created a list with each person we needed to buy for and then under each person a list of what they wanted.  Then – and this is where WorkFlowy shines – I got organized.  

  • Doug
    • steering wheel cover
  • Karen
    • Movie
    • Book
  • Carter
    • Train set
    • Puzzle

As I bought gifts for people, I crossed off the items.  An Amazon.com order took care of the steering wheel cover, movie, and book I needed.  Also, when I finish shopping for a particular person, I cross their name off entirely.  Doug and Carter need gifts to be purchased, Karen I’m done with. 

Staying Up To Date
Whenever I get an email then with gift requests – maybe Doug wants a new iPhone case – I can quickly add them into my WorkFlowy account. Then when I go shopping and hide the completed items I have a clean list to work from.

  • Doug
    • iPhone case
  • Carter
    • Train set
    • Puzzle

WorkFlowy has always been fast on my smartphone and I know that whenever I’m at a store and need to add a gift, who and what is right at my fingertips.

A Few More thoughts
Steve Stroh, WorkFlowy’s Semi Official Blogger, had some additional tips building on Mike’s ideas.

I use WorkFlowy for keeping track of gift giving the same way Michael does, but I add another layer of hierarchy to prioritize a bit when I’m under the gun at holiday time:

  • Family
  • Friends
  • Work
I use WorkFlowy for this continuously, not just during the Christmas season. When I get an idea for something that would make a great gift, I capture it immediately for future reference. Another refinement might be to keep track of gifts RECEIVED from various folks, and then marked completed when I’ve written a Thank You note.
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Vadim Vasiliev
9 years ago

I’m trying now to implement @ feature to the lists like this. For example, for X-mas gifts as they are to be bought in different places, not just in one online-store, I use @giftshop, @online, @vinestore etc.
So when I go to gist shop I just need to start wotkflowy on my smartphone and tap @giftshop to get all the list of what I’m going to buy here.
This way I connect the task creation (which starts from persons in this case) and task completion (which is done in specific places – contextes in GTD terms)

jessepatel
jessepatel
9 years ago
Reply to  Vadim Vasiliev

Nice, yeah, that is a great idea.

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