We had a good turnout of folks who said they wanted to participate in this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, in which we committed to doing 30 minutes of some genealogy-related activity for 30 days in a row. How’s it going? Please report in!
For me, this month’s challenge has been harder than usual. I’ve had a busy month with early appointments with organizing clients and I gave a talk at the St. Louis Genealogy Conference, last Saturday, which was a bit time consuming to prepare. So I haven’t researched each and every day–according to my research log, I missed three days completely. I know that on some of the days I did research, I wasn’t able to put in a full 30 minutes. I’m confident it will average to 30 minutes a day (helped by the fact that I attended a six-hour genealogy conference). And I’m okay with that.
Because of the 30 x 30 challenge, I definitely did research that I wouldn’t have otherwise done. This is why I love these challenges!
Even though I fell off the wagon a little bit, I fully intend to keep going and try not to miss any days the rest of the month. That’s progress, because I have a tendency to abandon daily challenges (especially those that involve exercise) if I break the chain.
I’d love to hear how it’s going for you! Have you been able to keep up with daily research? If you missed a day, did you hop right back on the challenge?
I didn’t commit to the challenge this time as I am enjoying our first new grandson! I did enjoy hearing you speak at the conference Saturday and plan to implement many of your tips this winter when things slow down. Thank you for taking the time to present!
I have made a lot of progress this month working on my genealogy.
Can you please share how you keep a record of your research? A research check list maybe?
For me and my intention to write a family story for 30 minutes a day, it turned out that I can’t quit at 30 minutes. But I have been writing 2-3 stories a week, each about 90-120 minutes. Some days I just open a word processing file with a name that reminds me of what I want to write about the next time I can, like “Aunt Helen’s 50th anniversary.” I’m also considering using the dictation feature on my MacBook to get a story started during a short break when something else. I use it for transcribing wide or complex documents. Why not for my own writing?
So far I have missed one day. Since I attended a local genealogy conference for a few hours, maybe that makes up for missing a day or two. As a side note, on this months challenge I have concentrated on some of my outstanding to do items that have been setting there for a few years and I have been able to complete the task on these items.
This month has been hard for me too. Including today, I’ve only done nine days of genealogy research at all (and almost all of it non-consecutive). Of all the days that I’ve missed, I’ve had a section where I didn’t do any genealogy research for almost a week. But I should count the fact that I’m getting at least some genealogy research done (even if it’s 30 minutes for nine days) as moving forward.
Update: Today, I finally finished processing (to an extent) the small pile of city directories I found almost two months ago. If I manage to get genealogy research done tomorrow, it’ll be back (or rather, back to continuing) to re-input data from my file folders into my genealogy program.
I started strong, then my laptop died and I was down for 3 weeks waiting for a new one to arrive! I’m now waiting for the download of all my files and then I’ll get back at it! The best thing is that I can always start again next challenge! Hope y’all have a great week!
I chose not to participate in the challenge, however I did attend your talk at the St Louis Genealogy Conference. Thank you! I have several ideas I want to work on incorporating now.