✦Events · 12 recordsBirthday party

A children's party is a short event with a hard start time and no tolerance for improvisation. This gets the invitations out early enough to know numbers, and plans the actual hours rather than only the shopping.

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✦ Everything it creates

The whole plan, before you install it

Goal

Two hours that work Week 5

Numbers known early, and the hours themselves planned rather than improvised.

Get the numbers Week 3

Everything else waits on the reply date.

  • Fix the date, time and placeDo firstDay 3
  • Send invitations with a reply dateDo firstDay 7
  • Confirm the final headcountDo firstWeek 3

Food, games and the day Week 5

Planned as a sequence, not a shopping list.

  • Decide the food and what needs orderingWeek 3
  • Write the two-hour running orderDo firstWeek 4
  • Do the shop and set up the day beforeWeek 5

Routines

  • Half an hour on the partyweekly
✦ It puts something in the calendar

Dates you will not have to remember

The party

Week 514:00120 min
✦ It comes with a note

Plan the two hours

The sequence — arrival, activity, food, cake, home — is what lets somebody run the party while somebody else deals with whatever has gone wrong.\n\nTwo hours is enough. Longer parties do not become better, they become the part where everybody is tired.

✦ Questions

Birthday party, answered.

Three to four weeks, which is early enough to get a real headcount and late enough that people can answer. Numbers determine food, space and party bags, so nearly everything else waits on that reply date.
About two hours, and this plan assumes that. Longer parties do not become better, they become the part where everyone is tired, and a planned two hours is far easier to fill well than an open afternoon.
The sequence — arrival, activity, food, cake, home. Having it written down means somebody can run it while somebody else deals with whatever has gone wrong, which is the reason it is a note rather than a memory.
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