Start your Christmas list in January

Every year around 10 December somebody's mother sends the same message to the family group: "What does everyone want?" Everyone types something vague from the sofa, and somebody gets a shower gel set. The fix is to have the list ready before she asks, and the best time to start it is now, in January.

You avoid writing it in the busiest month of the year

December is already full. School plays, office drinks, the in-laws, the ham to order. Trying to work out what you actually want in the middle of that gives you a list of whatever was in the last advert you saw.

Start in January and there is no rush. You have eleven months to notice what you want. The people buying for you get the same benefit: months to compare prices instead of two weeks of fighting through the shopping street with everyone else.

You catch the things you want at the moment you want them

The best gifts are usually things you wanted for about a day and then forgot. The Ottolenghi book you flicked through at a friend's house in March. The proper rain jacket you wished you had on a walk in October. The board game you played on holiday in July and never bought. By December all of that has gone out of your head, and you end up asking for socks.

A running list solves it. Keep a note on your phone, or create a wishlist and add to it whenever something catches your eye. Paste the link and the name, photo and price come in on their own, so it takes fifteen seconds while the thought is fresh. By November the list writes itself, and it describes what you actually want rather than what you could think of under pressure.

Your family can buy in the sales instead of in December

Prices in the last two weeks before Christmas are the worst of the year. Put a stand mixer on your list in January and your sister can pick it up during the summer sales for a good deal less. Headphones are cheaper in the back-to-school promotions, garden furniture in September, winter coats in February.

The buyer needs the list to exist for this to work. A wish that arrives on 10 December can only be bought on 12 December, at full price, with express delivery on top.

People can coordinate without asking each other

With months of lead time, your family can sort themselves out. Two cousins want to go in together on the espresso machine, so they contribute to it on the list. Your aunt reserves the jacket in April so nobody else buys it, and you do not see who reserved what unless you switch on "See reserved gifts" yourself. The alternative is the Christmas Eve moment where two people hand you the same book.

Big families feel the difference most. Fourteen people buying for each other from vague memory is how the same three gifts go round in circles for a decade.

Everyone shops with less pressure

When the list has been visible since spring, buying for you stops being a chore squeezed in between other chores. Your father-in-law can browse it on a quiet Sunday in October and pick something he thinks you will like. That produces better gifts than any amount of asking in December.

Starting in January works the way booking the summer holiday in February works. You get a better result for less money and less fuss. Create a Christmas list this week, put two things on it, and let it grow through the year.