My dream genealogy staycation

I’ve been very busy helping clients get organized recently and just have not taken the time to do genealogy research. I’ve been out all day most days and when I come home it’s all I can do to wrangle my email and get ready for the next day before collapsing with a glass of wine. (Well, it’s not quite that dramatic, but you get the idea.)

I find myself fantasizing about taking an entire week off to spend on doing genealogy research. In this dream stay-cation, I’d probably do the following:

• Get a good handle on what information I’m especially keen to check out
• Visit the local Family History Center
• Spend some time exploring the offerings of the St. Louis County Library
• Do some research at the genealogy area of the newly renovated St. Louis Public Library headquarters
• Continue to reorganize my electronic files
• Make sure I have electronic versions of the documents I’ve printed out and filed
• Read/view the many genealogy resources I’ve purchased
• See if I can figure out what I’d research if I went on a National Genealogical Society research trip to Salt Lake City

That sounds like more than a week’s worth of activities, actually. But the truth is that the chances I would actually take a week away from clients and running my organizing business is pretty remote.

But you know what? I don’t need a week off to dig into this stuff. Heck, I don’t need an afternoon off. If I can capture an hour here or there, I’ll make progress.  And if I managed to put in 30 minutes most days, I’d make huge progress. It’s just like I tell my clients about decluttering: 15 or 30 minutes a day can make all the difference in the world. In fact, I got out my calculator and figured it out. If you declutter (or do family history research) for 3o minutes a day, five days a week, for a year , it comes to 130 hours. That’s more than three work weeks!

I still love the idea of focusing my efforts for an entire week. But for now, I’ll try to wedge about a half hour a day in and see what progress I can make!