It's been a question for centuries: How does Santa Claus get all the gifts ready and fly around the world to deliver every present on Christmas Eve? While you're sitting around roasting chestnuts on an open fire, Santa and his friendly helpers are busy counting down the days left until Christmas. We have the inside scoop on how he gets it all done in time — straight from ol' Saint Nick himself!
A few decades ago, Santa was struggling with accountability and lost information. He had no way to assign work to his elves, and The List was missing some important notes. He almost ALWAYS had to check it twice. Ever since Santa switched to Wrike to manage Christmas, his crew has been able to dole out assignments, manage work leading up to their biggest milestone (Christmas Eve), and accurately track the lists of naughty and nice children.
Here are his top 3 Wrike secrets to getting everything done before Christmas:
1. Build a Timeline to Help With Pre-Christmas Planning
At the beginning of each year, Santa and his helpers map out their plans for the next 12 months on a Gantt chart. They schedule when The List needs to be finalized, as well as when gifts need to be completed leading up to their big delivery date on Christmas Eve. Santa turns to this feature when he needs a high-level view of the toy-making tasks to make sure nothing is falling through the cracks. Since Christmas Eve is set as a milestone, Santa can move around the order in which work is being done without accidentally pushing production past the Big Day.
2. Create a Folder and Identify Who's Been Naughty or Nice
Santa creates The List right in Wrike. He creates a Wrike folder titled "The List" and each individual on The List is has their own task. The Christmas wishes of individuals are included in their task description. Santa also leaves comments on each task to record good behavior he's noticed throughout the year. When people on The List volunteer, help someone need, or maybe make peace with the in-laws, he'll write down their good deeds for future reference. His uses his Custom Statuses "Naughty" and "Nice" to mark The List accordingly — so be good for goodness sake!
3. Assign Workers to Build the Gifts
Once The List is finished and Christmas is nigh, Santa begins assigning his helpers to their tasks. He creates a folder called "The Gifts" and makes tasks for presents requested on The List by people marked as "Nice". Each task is tagged with the name of the individual requesting it, and assigned to the elf that will build it for them.
So there you have it! Santa's secrets are out and that time of the year is upon us.
We hope these tips made you chuckle and delight, and help make your holidays a little more merry and bright.
We only gave away a few of Santa's tricks in this post. What other Wrike features do you think he uses to manage Christmas? Share your creative ideas in the comments!
