We’re halfway through April and a good number of you said you were going to participate in the April 30 x 30 challenge in which we vow to do something genealogy-related for 30 minutes each day throughout the 30 days of the month.

How’s it going? Have you been able to make that daily effort? Is it paying dividends?

I haven’t missed a day yet, I’m happy to say, but I haven’t been able to do much more than 30 minutes either. Because I have a backlog of documents to process, it feels like a little bit of drudgery, I’m afraid. But I know I’ll get through it, even if all I can do is work on it 30 minutes at a time.

I’m going to spend some time thinking about how to deal with the backlog without it feeling like drudgery and I plan to blog about that soon.

If you’re participating in the 30 x 30 challenge (or would like to), please comment and let us know how it’s going!

Time to start a new 30 x 30 challenge! Would you like to join me in committing to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research (or organizing genealogy research, or doing anything genealogy related) every day for 30 days? We’ll start on April 1 and end on April 30.

I’d been doing really well with daily research for seven months, into late March. But then my father had a health crisis, which caused me to drop everything and travel to Washington state. He’s fine now, but I stuck around to take him to follow up appointments and make sure he’s okay. I’ve been here almost a week and haven’t had an opportunity to do any research at all. So a 30 x 30 challenge will help me get back into the groove. I return home on April 2 and I’ll do my best to get some research time in on April 1. (I’m hampered here by the fact he doesn’t have wifi in his condo.)

Who’s in? If you’d like to join the challenge, make a comment below. Feel free to share what your commitment is; customize the challenge so it works for you. For me, I’ll either research or organize my research in those 30 minutes daily.

For those of you who participated in this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, in which you committed to doing 30 minutes of genealogy-related activity for 30 days in a row, how’d it go?

I actually missed a day, for the first time since August 1. I typically research first thing in the morning but on Saturday I had to be up and out of the house to get to the Apple store when it opened (my phone had died) and then the rest of the day went by in a blur and I forgot to research. So that speaks to the power of daily routine. I’m definitely best off if I can research in the morning and I try to plan the time I wake up around it. (That Saturday I couldn’t get myself to get up earlier, because I’d had a late night the night before.)

So that’s my true confession. How did the rest of you do? Even if you weren’t able to do 30 days in a row, was the effort at least beneficial? I’d love to hear!

Happy new year! I don’t know about you, but I love starting new habits at the beginning of the month. The beginning of the year is even better! So now seems like a great time to start a new 30 x 30 challenge.

The original intent of the challenge is to challenge yourself to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research for 30 days in a row. I’ve done probably a half dozen of these challenges over the last 2.5 years and the August 2017 one finally stuck. I’ve done research every single day since August 1.

The challenge doesn’t have to be for 30 minutes of  research. Perhaps it’s 30 minutes of genealogy organizing or scanning or whittling away at a backlog. Whatever type of genealogy-related work you’d like to do for 30 minutes a day is perfect for this challenge.

For me, I have a lot going on, so I’m sticking with the original 30 minutes of research. I want to set myself up for success.

Please comment below if you’d like to take on the challenge and let us know what you’ll be working on.