One of the things I love about doing daily genealogy research is that I never lose the thread of my research. I jot down next steps in my research log and then each morning I know just what to work on. No agonizing over what to research.
That’s how it’s supposed to work and how it does work when I’m in my groove. But, as I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I’ve done virtually no research for about a month. None. It makes me sad and it’s why I’m starting a 30 x 30 challenge on April 1.
Today I had a sliver of time and some motivation to get back in the saddle. But I faced a conundrum about what to work on. Most recently, I’d been working on eradicating the paper backlog I uncovered. But I’m away from home at the moment so I physically couldn’t do that.
It’s amazing to my how paralyzing the question, “What should I work on?” is. It can stop me in my tracks.
So I started thinking about the various strategies I could employ in figuring out what to work on today:
- I could look at my research log to see where I left off.
- I could work on processing my backlog of downloaded documents. (A small one has built up in recent months.)
- I could open up my Source Documentation Checklist and pick up where I left off.
- I could look at my follow-up notes, which I keep in notebooks by surname in Evernote.
- I could choose an ancestor (any ancestor) and see what research questions I have about him/her and get started there.
- I could look in my family-tree software (I use Reunion) and see if any of my families had a significant event today and work on them. (I wrote about that method here.)
- If I were at home, I could play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and close my eyes and grab a pin on my ancestor map, then do some research on that ancestor. (That’s my ancestor map in the photo.)
Here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter what I start working on as long as I re-engage with my research. The important thing is that I get the ball rolling and work on something. (Anything, really.) As my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I discuss on our podcast Getting to Good Enough, perfectionism can really get in the way of doing what you love!
What I ended up doing was working on my backlog of downloaded documents, which allowed me to jump right in and make progress. It felt great!
Mary says
March 22, 2019 at 6:41 pmI would like to join you. I’ve found that accountability works wonders for me. I’ve been working on establishing good habits in other areas of life in 2019. Daily research/writing is one of the habits on my list to do this year. I think I will use this time from now until April 1st to come up with a plan of action.
Carol Sooter says
March 23, 2019 at 8:08 amJanine-I love your list! Helps me immensely. I have a huge backlog of papers to scan and file (digitally), but I get easily swayed by ‘bright, shiny objects.’ I try to do a little genealogical research each day, using a list to keep me on track. I also like Mary’s comments about accountability. I find I do better if it’s written done so I can refer to it. I also am trying to establish good habits in other areas of my life in 2019. I’m going to make my list right now!!
Leslie Rigsby says
March 23, 2019 at 10:42 amI also try to work on a little each day. In fact, I have set recurring genealogical tasks in my google calendar. I recently inherited tons of photos and slides, for example. So one of my tasks is to scan in and “process” 1 photo each day. I don’t always get to it, but I try. Sometimes I scan in 7 for the week and then work on the processing all week. By processing, I mean that I enter them in my genealogical program, create a source citation, put it on my Ancestry tree, and then store it in a file on my computer and in Google photos. It’s time-consuming but I have been consistent with my organization and techniques. I’m well aware that I have too many genealogical tasks listed for each day, but on my days off I can usually get to all of them.