We’re a little over halfway through the month and therefore more than halfway through the April 30 x 30 challenge. If you’re one of the folks who is participating, how have you been doing with the challenge of 30 minutes of genealogy research for 30 days in a row (or whatever version you’ve created)?
I have to admit, this has been a tough one for me. I knew going in that it was going to be a challenge to do daily research. In the first two weeks of the month, I was out of town nine days. And when I was home, I was busy with organizing clients. So, as I said in the post introducing the challenge, I adjusted my goal to be daily research, no matter how small, with an average of 30 minutes a day stretched out over the month.
I’m happy to say I’ve managed to research each and every day, but I’ve been flexible on what I have to do to meet that standard. Some days I’ve research more than a half hour. Others, only ten minutes. Yesterday, all I did was read an article in the new NGS Quarterly. But the fact is that each day I’ve had something to enter in my research log and that’s made me feel good.
Last weekend, I was able to get a few hours of research in on a rainy day, so I think I’ll achieve my goal of 900 minutes over the course of the month (though I haven’t been keeping close track).
How about you? Have you missed a day? And if you did, did you get right back into it? Please share your progress!
My challenge brings focus, satisfaction, and accomplishments. I experience similar success in other projects and aspects of life.
That’s wonderful to hear! Thanks for your comment, Cheri!
I’m way over the 30 mins on average because I am combining this with an A-Z blogging challenge where you blog each day in April using the letters of the alphabet as a prompt. I decided to do mine based on the first names of people in my study. Takes me way way more than 30 mins (too much of a perfectionist I fear). The good thing however is that the two challenges are keeping me disciplined.
https://www. heenan.one-name.net
Wow! I’m really impressed that you’re combining the two challenges and I’m glad it’s going so well!
This has been a big success for me! Like you, I have not been closely tracking my minutes, but i have no doubt I’ll get my 900 minutes in. I quit actually tracking minutes last Friday, when I’d already logged 625 minutes. So I’ve switched to doing SOMETHING every day, at least 5 days per week. And most days, if I do anything, I do at least a half hour, and sometimes a could of hours. One of the things I’ve been working on is incorporating Zotero into my genealogy. (I learned about it here.) I could write a whole lot about my experiences with it—but I think I’ll work on my genealogy instead! Thanks for the challenge and the jumpstart!
Kim, that’s great! Congratulations on your success! I like your new goal. And I’m happy and interested to hear that you’re using Zotero! So glad I could be a bit helpful!
Kim, I’m very interested in how Zotero is working for you now after 19+ months of using it. I’m considering using Zotero but just read someone else say it is complicated and for the sake of simplicity he is using other tools. Thanks, Debora
I’ll be honest: I haven’t done any genealogy research since March 25th. Zilch. The thing is though, the first half of this month has been very hard for me. We put down my 17 year old dog two days ago and I’ve known about this happening since the beginning of this month. So naturally, I’ve been – I had been – spending most of time with her.
As always, my goal for this month is to keep moving forward on inputting my genealogy files and all the other stuff related to that. My deadline to start my prize of a one year free subscription to GenealogyBank is six weeks away from this past Wednesday. And if possible, I wanted to finish inputting my genealogy files into Family Tree Maker (and the related stuff to that) by the deadline but it’s probably not going to happen at this point. Either way, I have to start GenealogyBank at the end of May.
I’m going to try to do Kim’s idea of 900 minutes this month and try to catch up but right now, I know I need to be kind to myself. I think at this point, if I manage to even get 30 minutes of genealogy research in by the end of this month, I’ll be ok with it. I won’t be terribly pleased or happy with it (because I would’ve wished I could have gotten more in) but I’ll be ok with it.
Also, I forgot to mention this in my comment for the start of this month’s 30×30 but I took the quiz and I’m an Obliger. I figured I was even before I took the quiz from reading about the different descriptions on that page.
On a completely different note, will you be attending the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree that’s from Thursday, May 30th – Sunday, June 2nd? I know that D. Joshua Taylor will be speaking! If you do come, I’ll see you there! (Early Bird Registration ends on April 21st!)
Rebecca, I’m so sorry to hear about your dog passing. Believe me, I know how hard that is and how it can make it difficult to get anything done after. I’m so glad you recognize that you have to be kind to yourself. Setting a realistic goal, like 30 minutes of genealogy in the next 11 days, is great. You’ll benefit from your Genealogy Bank subscription regardless of whether you are caught up with your FTM data entry.
Have fun at the Genealogy Jamboree! I’m not going this year, but I do get to hear Josh speak at the Midwestern Roots conference in Indianapolis in July. I went to the Jamboree four years ago and really enjoyed it.
Good luck with your challenge. Remember to be kind to yourself!
Hugs to you Rebecca since I have current first hand knowledge of your sorrow – our 10 year old dog (the.best.dog.ever – or at least OUR.best.dog.ever) had been ailing for about 18 months and about 3 weeks ago we invited the vet to the house to put him down. We still miss him so much and sometimes it is difficult to concentrate on much of anything else. Dogs are truly our best friends and working through the sorrow takes as long as it need to. I wish you all the best with that process.
I’m sorry for your loss, Carol. Our pets can leave such big holes when they depart.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Rebecca. I understand how hard it is for you right now. We had to let our dog go in September, and there are days that I still walk into the house expecting him to come running to greet me. Our pets are family!
Since my goal was mainly to scan and label photos instead of actual research, I have been fairly successful so far. I’ve made a BIG dent in the pile of what needs to be scanned and I’ve also been trying to stay current with uploading current photos I take from the phone to the computer. I’m nearly done doing so with the 3 day vacation photos so I feel pretty good for that.
That’s excellent, Carol! Thanks for checking in. I bet that huge dent in the pile feels great.
I have been able to do this, with a bit of extra research on my days off work. Yesterday I had a vacation day and we spend a couple hours at a library we hadn’t visited before. My favorite discovery was a picture of an cousin of some degree who was a famous (infamous) body builder. He was born in 1868. The collection was primarily clippings. The one of this guy, Bernarr MacFadden (given name was really Bernard McFadden) came from a magazine. I laughed out loud when I saw it. He was posing naked! I wasn’t expecting that. He was quite a character.
Wow, that’s quite a find! What a fun surprise. Glad the challenge is going well for you, Leslie!
I’m doing the A to Z Blog Challenge that comes around every April. My theme this year is vintage family photos so I’m getting in quite a bit of research time getting background info for those.
That sounds great Virginia!