How to prepare your Thanksgiving dinner like a Project Manager

Updated on November 10, 2023

Thanksgiving is the perfect time of year for all generations of our family to come together in celebration and share the things we’re grateful for. Boomers, millennials or gen-Z, we all put their differences aside for a brief, shining moment to pass the gravy of kindness and carve the turkey of tolerance. Just make sure you keep the celebration to just the people in your household.

Naturally, the catalyst here is the lovely Thanksgiving dinner we’re gathered around. So, how can you make sure everything runs smoother than the 15-year-old brandy you’re waiting to share with other adults in the study, later that evening?

We all know how stressful the planning of this event can get and how important it is that every little detail is absolutely perfect, from the roasted turkey right down to the heirloom silverware.

As such, let us come to your aid with two Thanksgiving preparation timelines. We guarantee that your family will get up from the dinner table feeling like a stuffed turkey and will have ‘pumpkin’ to talk about for months!

Feast mode, activate!

Start early to get a (turkey) leg up on the competition!

Last-minute Thanksgiving preparations will leave you spread thinner than the pumpkin pie dough. Don’t wait until the stores are jam-packed with revelers battling over the last frozen turkey. There’s plenty you can do ahead of time, and you’ll be glad you checked them off the list down the road. Have a look at this Thanksgiving preparation timeline and start planning like a pro:

The ‘baste’ day of the year!

Come Thanksgiving morning, you’re probably scrambling to get everything ready in the most efficient manner possible. The trick here is to make the best use of what would normally be downtime, waiting for your dishes to bake or roast. While the key to a successful Thanksgiving dinner is the tur-key, there’s no reason to gobble aimlessly while it’s in the oven.

Check out our Thanksgiving dinner timeline and don’t be afraid to delegate some responsibilities, so you can be there for the traditional snapping of the wishbone instead of still slaving away over the hot stove!

About the Thanksgiving timelines

The Thanksgiving preparation timelines were created using Office Timeline, a simple yet powerful project management solution that allows you to generate attractive visual representations of data within minutes.

Give the free version a try or check out the free 14-day trial of the tool's most advanced edition, which comes with additional features that are better suited for more complex roadmap applications. You can download the Thanksgiving preparation timelines as a PowerPoint file and you can even tailor a new schedule, based on your own favorite dishes! Happy Thanksgiving!