Randomizing my research

I promised myself I would get some research done yesterday. (Not organizing, research.) I knew there was some barrier to getting started and on Sunday I created a little mind map to try to figure it out. That made me realize that my problem was that I didn’t know just what to work on and perhaps there was some lingering fear that I’d choose the wrong thing. (Of course that’s ridiculous, but emotions aren’t always reasonable, are they?)

In my mind mapping/journaling I reassured myself that it didn’t matter what research I did, I just needed to do something. I committed to starting some research by 10 a.m. yesterday (Presidents’ Day). Dutifully at 10 a.m. I sat at my computer and tried to figure out what to work on.

I was still a little paralyzed, so I came up with a little method that worked for me. Here’s what I did. I’m sharing it with you now in case you ever find yourself in a similar spot.

I looked at my genealogy to-do list and I created a numbered list of 10 possible research tasks. I made sure each one was something I’d be happy to work on. Then I  went to the Random Number Generator website and came up with a random number between 1 and 10 (inclusive). I took that number and did the corresponding task on my list. When I finished with that task, I did it again.

I basically needed to take the choice away from myself, for some reason. Once it was out of my hands, I had no trouble getting started on the tasks that had been randomly selected for me.

I feel so much better for having gotten started! I have some more time for family history research today, so I’m going to go back to my list and the RNG and see where it takes me.

I feel a little pathetic having to resort to this but, hey, whatever works, right?