As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I’m itching for a new 30 x 30 challenge. I find them so motivating. When I have one going,  genealogy research shoots to the top of my priority list. (Among Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies, I’m an Upholder.)

These past couple of months I’ve let other tasks take priority over genealogy research and I miss my ancestors! So for the month of April, I commit to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research for 30 days. Who’s with me?

For those of you interested in participating, please know that the rules are your own. For example, I will consider myself successful if I research every day and the 30 day average is at least 30 minutes. There may be some days where 30 minutes will be more than I can do (especially since I’m going to an organizers’ conference the first week in April), but I’ll counterbalance that with longer sessions. I just want to do some research every day.

It’s up to you to decide what you want to work on. For me, it’s genealogy research. For you, it might be organizing your genealogy research. Really, anything counts as long as it fits into your own criteria.

If you’d like to join me starting on April 1, please leave a comment. Happy researching!

March has been a terrible month for me in terms of prioritizing doing family history research. And that makes it a bad blogging month for me because, of course, my research feeds this blog.

I know that the 30 x 30 challenge (in which I challenge myself and my readers to do 30 minutes of genealogy research or organizing every day for 30 days) is hugely helpful for me in prioritizing research.

So on April 1, I’ll start a new challenge. You can be thinking about whether you’d like to join me. It’s going to be a little challenging for me because I’ll be going to an organizing conference in early April and an out-of-town wedding in mid-April. But getting my research groove back will be really important if I want to maximize the benefits of attending the National Genealogical Society conference May 8 to 11. And if I can do it this April, I can pretty much do it any month.

You don’t have to commit now but keep an eye out for a post on March 29 announcing the challenge!

It’s January 15 already and it’s time to report in on our progress with the 30 x 30 challenge. Twenty people signed on for the challenge, which involves doing genealogy research (or organizing or whatever you choose to do) for 30 minutes a day every day for 30 days. I’d love to hear how it’s going! Have you been able to research every day? Have you missed some days but gone back to it? Have you given up? I’d love to know what you’ve accomplished and what benefits you’ve found to researching daily (or trying to research daily).

I’ll start! I have indeed managed to research every day. Over the weekend I even researched several hours each day (and blogged about how I lost my focus). It’s been so nice to make daily research a priority again. It makes me feel more connected with my research (and my ancestors). I haven’t made any startling breakthroughs, but I am giving Trello a whirl for keeping track of genealogy tasks and I look forward to writing a future post about how that is working out.

If you’re participating in the challenge (regardless of whether you officially said you were), please check in!