Here’s the next in my occasional series of bite-size Quick Tips. Click on the Quick Tips tag for my other Quick Tips. Because I tend to write longer posts, I wanted to provide a quick-to-read (and quick-to-write) post every couple of weeks on a small topic that pops into my head. This is one that will help me learn more without feeling behind or overwhelmed.
Schedule time for genealogy education
There are so many great learning opportunities in genealogy but it can be easy to miss out unless you become intentional about it. I suggest setting a regular time in an interval that works for you (say, every Saturday morning or the first Monday evening of the month) to focus on learning and expanding your genealogy skills.
This post is prompted by the fact that I have yet to watch any of the free RootsTech presentations that are available to watch on demand for the next year. I know that if I don’t set aside time to do it, the year will be over and I will have missed out. There are also free webinars offered monthly by the Southern California Genealogy Society and the Florida State Genealogy Society, though most of those are available live only (unless you’re a member). Those deserve a place on my schedule. (As do the piles of genealogy journals that go unread.)
If you schedule time for genealogy education, you’re much more likely to do it. Your future self will thank you!
Photo by Sam Dan Truong on Unsplash
LOL! I have the same issue!! I registered for that conference knowing I would be busy that weekend but wanted to be able to listen to the presentations. I have YET to find the time to listen to one! Yes, I am challenging myself to commit to listening to one each week! Thank you for the tip! I will make this a priority!
So glad the tip was helpful, Zenda! I think one Rootstech presentation a week is an excellent, achievable goal. I’ll join you in committing to it!
Great tip! I have set aside time on Friday mornings to watch at least two of the Roots Tech videos. I am BIG on continuing to educate myself and improve my skills and have worked on educating myself for 30 years. Still learning new things too.
That’s fantastic, Linda. There’s always so much to learn, isn’t there?
Sounds like a great tip. I will have to set a specific time aside for that. I have Roots Tech videos and Webinars from Legacy Family Tree to watch.
Let us know if setting aside time works for you, Jerry!
Thanks for the reminder!
I’m satisfied (so far) with my paper and digital filing systems. However, the materials that have me deep in the morass are educational posts by you, Janine, and several other bloggers that I follow. I have moved the email materials into a bulging file simply called Genealogy. I have moved the blog posts into my Favorites – Genealogy. Now I can’t even find anything useful, it would take months to sort them into useful subcategories (probably 273 of them?), and they just keep rolling in. I’ve created a monster! Suggestions would be most welcome.
I’m flattered to be part of that problem, Maggie! The first thing that jumped to mind is Evernote as a tool for those resources. You could create a Genealogy Resources notebook and a note for each resource. You can forward emails to Evernote. And you could either create a note with a link for favorite blog posts or use the web clipper if you want the note to contain the whole post. The beauty of it is that it’s searchable, so you could do a simple search on the topic of interest. And if you were feeling ambitious, you could tag notes. So, for example, you could tag notes from this blog with a tag called OYFH and search on that tag to see all the OYFH posts. You could also search on a topic (say, digital organizing) and if you only wanted to see the notes containing my blog posts on that topic, filter the search with the OYFH tag. Feel free to reach out via email if you have questions.
Yours is at least the fourth person who has recommended Evernote for one purpose or another. So . . . if I’m reading blogs for good ideas, how ’bout I actually use one?! I’m going to check out Evernote as soon as I wake tomorrow morning and will learn as much about it as I need to really give it a good try.
Thank you for the suggestion. Familiarity breeds Attempt!
LOL. I hope you like Evernote. Some people find it a bit of a learning curve, but it’s a very helpful and flexible app. Good luck with it!