Occasions give time and planning context to the long-term Person record. Birthday, Christmas and other recurring or one-off events can all be represented.
Open the Occasion directory on iPhone/iPad
- Open Today.
- Open Occasions.
- Browse or search the Occasion directory.
- Select an Occasion card to open its plan.
Create a new Occasion
- Open Today → Occasions.
- Tap New occasion.
- Choose the Occasion type and date/recurrence.
- Add zero, one or multiple People as appropriate.
- Review reminder behaviour.
- Add planning/budget information if useful.
- Tap Add.
An Occasion may exist before you know which Person or Gift belongs to it. Birthday remains the canonical one-Person exception tied to a Person’s birthday.
Add or remove People from an Occasion
- Open the Occasion.
- Choose Edit.
- Open People in the editor.
- Add or remove the relevant People.
- Save.
Add a Person to an Occasion without creating a Gift
From the Person/Ocassion linking controls, add the Person directly to the Occasion. You do not need to invent a Gift Idea just to establish planning membership.
Readiness
The Gift Journal distinguishes between having memories/Ideas and actually being prepared. Readiness reflects the planning state for the specific Occasion occurrence rather than merely counting a Person as present.
Typical cues include:
- Needs attention — no sufficiently prepared gift yet.
- Ideas saved — useful Ideas exist, but planning is not yet at a ready stage.
- Ready — the current Occasion occurrence has a Gift explicitly advanced far enough through the planning status.
Set a budget
- Open the Occasion plan.
- Choose Edit.
- In Planning, enter the budget information you want to use.
- Save.
- Return to the Occasion/Today planning view to see totals and remaining/attention cues.
Budgeting is lightweight planning, not accounting. Multi-recipient Gifts remain one Gift identity and should not be double-counted merely because multiple People are linked.
Use multiple currencies
The journal stores currency meaning rather than silently treating all values as the same currency. Your Regional Settings determine defaults/presentation for new entries, while captured values can retain their own currency.
Continue an Occasion on Apple Watch
- Open the Occasion on iPhone.
- Choose Continue on Apple Watch.
- For a multi-person Occasion, deliberately choose the Person whose capture context you want to prepare.
- If the Watch is reachable, the context is sent immediately; if not, it is queued.
- Open The Gift Journal on Watch and use the From iPhone card to speak an Idea or Hint.
The Watch does not open the full Occasion editor. The hand-off is only a lightweight capture context. See Apple Watch.
Share an Occasion plan
- Open the Occasion.
- Choose Share privately.
- Select exactly which shareable fields/entries you want to disclose.
- Read the preview carefully.
- Choose Share occasion….
Private Hints, Context, purchase history, fulfilment details and other journal-only information are not silently exposed by the Occasion share.