In past posts I have addressed the issue of none of my ancestors keeping journals or documenting much. It's hard for me because I HAVE QUESTIONS! What did you do all day? And how did you do all the things? How was your life different from mine? I have in my possession, a photo album of my dad's missionary service in Denmark. It's one of those black paper albums with the pictures rubber cemented in. I discovered it in a box recently, opened it up, and the pictures literally fell off the pages. And the worst thing? There is not one written word in the album or on the pictures. No names, no dates, no places. Not. One. Word. Nothing to connect the stories behind these pictures to my dad, who has now been dead for almost 40 years. There's no way to retrieve the history or the connections, and it broke my heart.
I made a mental promise to myself that my posterity would never have to ask those questions about my life. It has taken me through several phases of documenting, from "creative" scrapbooking, to a picture-a-day format, to physical Project Life product, and then the app, and editorial pages and journals. At this time of year I find myself wrapping up things from 2020, and moving into the new year's documenting. I'm going to stick with what's working for me right now. Some of this you've seen, but some will be new to you. All of it is personal history. It overlaps a little here and there, and it might seem a little like overkill. I'm owning that. Anyone who's interested will never have to ask, "What did you do all day?" or "How did you feel about _____?" because it's all right here. Maybe no one will be interested, but I can guarantee there are dates, place names, and stories told with every, single picture I've documented.
Because all my children are grown and out of the house, I've abdicated their particular family histories to them. With expanding families, it was just too hard to do pretty, creative layouts for extended family.
I couldn't keep up and it frustrated me, so when I found the free Project Life app, it was like direct revelation from heaven. I could include snippets of my children and grandkids' lives in the weekly pages, because they text me pictures, but I wasn't bogged down with the guilt of trying to turn every aspect of everyone's life into a work of art. It was truly life-changing for me.
I'll be sticking with this format for daily life documentation in the coming year. I've ordered my 2020 family yearbook and look forward to seeing all these stories in one, cohesive book.
So yes, Project Life is still happening through the app on my phone.
Next up are the editorial pages, also done through the Project Life app. I recently received an order I placed for some of the printed pages. These consist of older blog post stories that happened before I developed a daily-ish system for recording life, blog posts in which I feel I have something to say to my posterity (like the Stuff I Know posts), and responses to the weekly prompts from the My Modern Story IG account put out by the Project Life creator. The prompts tend to be a little more thought-provoking, digging a little deeper into opinions and feelings. I'm way behind on those with how busy the holiday season was, but will be catching up during this first part of the year....I hope. These pages are stored in binders since the entries are filed in different categories that don't have a concrete ending point.
Next up....I'm a planner person. Have been for at least 35 years. I've tried a bunch of different types and have settled on this one for now. This is a Hobonichi Weeks. It measures about 7 1/2" x 4" so it's small enough to be easily portable.
Again, since my children are grown, I don't have as many places I need to run around to...kind of. It's different when it's just me I need to be responsible for. I don't need as much physical room in a planner to keep track of where I need to be vs. when I had 6 kids to shuffle around. The Hobonichi is pretty flexible in the way it can be set up. This is a week in my planner. From left to right, I have a daily checklist I work through, appointments, the weather (and yes, I do track it....just for fun and for comparison purposes), meal planning, and a running weekly checklist. I like seeing a week at a time so I know what's coming up in the next few days and I don't turn a page and.....SUPRISE!!!. In the bottom right you can see a checklist I keep for exercise and scripture study. Since those are priority things I'm working on, they get their own spot. I have a Cocoa Daisy subscription for pretty stickers that helps satisfy that desire to doll things up a bit.
The thing I really like about this particular planner is the blank pages following the weekly calendar sheets. They can be for anything your little heart desires. I've chosen to do a monthly highlight/crappy things page for each month.
I have a section for church meeting notes where I write down quotes or ideas I like, or in these days of virtual church/home church, what happened.
I have a section for recording garden things. I'm hoping to expand it this summer including more information like varieties we grow and how the yield was.
I have a section for the canning that happens, and looking at this picture I can see I forgot to include the applesauce. I will be keeping these planners. Yes, I know all this scheduling and recording could be done on my phone, but I'm a visual and tactile person. I have my planner sitting in a prominent place in my kitchen so I can see it often during the day. Plus there's something that orders my mind as I get the next week ready to go. That step by step process is the way I'm wired. Additionally, all this information is in one place which is a big plus for me. I don't have to go scrolling through multiple apps or flipping through other notebooks where I might keep it. It's working for me right now.
And if that wasn't enough, I also keep a personal journal. You might wonder why I need one when I use what's already been listed in this post. Yes, it's a running commentary of my day, but it's also where a lot of the details and feelings go that there isn't space for in other formats. The Project Life pages and my planner pages don't allow for expounding at great length, and I've gotten better at filling out the details in my journal.
I dictate my entries at the end of the day or early the following morning using the free Day One app. I email these entries to myself at the end of the month, print them out and put them in binders so I can have a physical copy.
So there it is, how I will continue to document personal and family history for the coming year. It might seem like a lot, but I have a system and can do the journal dictating and Project Life photo-winnowing in about 10 minutes a day. Planning my week happens every Sunday in about 20 minutes, so the basics are covered with a minimum of effort. Printing the journaling pages out and doing the editorial pages take more time, but they happen more on an as-needed basis. Am I overcompensating? Maybe. Is is worth it? To me....absolutely. Because no one who cares to look even a little bit at what I've documented will EVER ask, "What did you do all day?"
