Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots
When it comes to organizing your genealogy, what’s your biggest challenge? (For me, I think it’s finding the time and using it well.)
I’d love to know what your challenges are, so I’ve created a little poll. Select as many answers as you’d like. Feel free to select Other and fill in your challenge if I haven’t thought of it. Also, feel free to elaborate in the comments. Knowing what you find challenging will help me decide what to write about.
I love Thanksgiving. I think it’s wonderful that we have a national holiday here in the U.S. dedicated to giving thanks for all those things we are fortunate to have in our lives.
On my organizing blog, I wrote a post about what I’m thankful for this year in my personal and organizing life. Here, I want to write about some of the things I’m grateful for in my genealogy life. The genealogy community is so rich and there is much to be thankful for.
Here’s my genealogy gratitude list.
I look forward to another year of genealogy research and exploration. I know that I will continue to have much to be grateful for.
What’s on your genealogy gratitude list?
Illustration by Julie Jordan Scott via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.
I love Twitter and have been on it since 2008. I primarily use it for marketing my organizing business and reading interesting things posted by the people I follow. But recently, I’ve been searching on the #genealogy hashtag and it’s been a revelation!
I find keeping up with genealogy blogs a bit overwhelming. (I tried using Feedly, but found I just wasn’t reading blogs with regularity.) What’s great about the #genealogy hashtag is that I see tweets about individual posts, resources, news bites or lectures in progress–all of them genealogy related–and I can click on the link and go directly to the post or resource. Tweets are only 140 characters long, so I can get a teeny bite-sized synopsis of the link. I can dip in when I’m looking for inspiration. It’s a really interesting way to go about finding current genealogy-related things to read about.
If you’re not on Twitter, you could join today (at no cost) and immediately start searching the #genealogy hashtag. You could also start tweeting and build relationships with people and grow your followers. I hear from a lot of people that they just don’t “get” Twitter, which is fine. For the genealogist, using it as a gateway to genealogy information is reason enough to join Twitter, in my opinion. Follow a few a few genealogy luminaries and you’ll have a timeline full of interesting stuff. (But again, if you search on #genealogy you don’t even need to worry about following anyone or reading your timeline.)
Here’s a brief primer on joining Twitter and using it for genealogy:
If you’re already on Twitter, how do you use it for genealogy?
If you can’t remember the last time you saw your desktop in your genealogy research space, perhaps it’s time to experience the joy of a clean desk. I know that time to do genealogy research is limited for most people and the last way you want to spend your precious genealogy time is on cleaning up your desk. But it’s worth it. When you sit down at a clear desk, your mind is more clear and you can be more focused on your research.
But there’s good news: It doesn’t have to be hard or time consuming. Here’s a step-by-step suggestion for creating some order on your desk, swiftly.
* When your timer goes off, stop what you’re doing and take a five-minute break. Then set it for another 25 minutes and get back to work, unless you’re done.
