It happens every year and yet we’re so often not prepared. We’ve planned the content, organised how it will be executed and yet still we don’t seem to get it done in time. Optimisation for Christmas always seems possible in January and impossible in November.
Some obviously plan their optimisation well in advance, planning things out over the period of the year, ensuring various plans are executed at the most economic point in the annual cycle. They have their strategy mostly mapped out, with some ‘wiggle room’ built in for last minute acquisitions at odd times in the cycle.
Others stick to a rigid, time-optimised plan, executing to strict guidelines within certain geographic regions with a very specific target market in mind. These people are quite rigid in their approach and can react with hostility at the suggestion of increased flexibility. Their budgets are pre-planned and schedules organised to the minute.
Still others will approach Christmas optimisation in a haphazard way, allowing the winds of whim to blow them here and there. Lacking a strategy, their optimisation is rarely executed in any discernable way and to a certain extent despite spending more than they may have planned, the result is far less optimised than they had imagined.
I think I am a bit of a mix. My approach to optimisation of Christmas is a small amount of advance planning, executing some parts at economically favourable points in the cycle but generally dashing around like a mad woman at various deadlines to try and achieve all my goals before the deadline passes.
I guess that’s part of the magic of Christmas – that I manage to get my gift buying done at all!
