If your annual Christmas wrapping session leaves you covered in screwed up balls of sellotape and torn paper, help is at hand.

A new video showcasing an incredibly fast and simple technique has gone viral - revealing how to wrap a present in just 12 seconds.

Using two pieces of tape, the trick, according to the footage, by YouTube user Todd Tripp filmed at the Takashimaya Department Store in Tokyo, Japan, is to place your gift diagonally in the corner of a sheet of paper, rather than in the middle.

Starting point: Place the gift on the corner of the sheet of wrapping paper

The video, which has been viewed more than three million times in just three days, then demonstrates, in a remarkably easy-looking series of moves, how to complete the process.

Firstly, assuring that two corners of your gift touch the edges of the paper, fold those two corners up and stick down with a piece of tape.

Then fold the paper around the item - so that you are left with two corners of the sheet exposed

Twist the side-corner into the remaining triangle

Then stick each one to the gift - all in less than 12 seconds!

Then fold the main section of paper, above the gift, over the box and flip the present over.

Lift the flap of paper now left at the opposite end of the gift, followed by the final flap.

Tuck in the pointed end to ensure the wrapping looks neat and secure with tape.

If done correctly, the gift should be seamlessly wrapped with no crumpled paper or unsightly lumps.