Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

The Power of Enough (Zoom presentation)

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You may know from reading this blog that I am passionate about embracing imperfection. My RootsTech talk earlier this year was called “The Imperfect Genealogist.” Each week, I co-host a podcast called Getting to Good Enough with life coach Shannon Wilkinson. It’s all about letting go of perfectionism so you can do more of what you love.

Shannon and I were tickled to be invited by the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals (that’s my professional association as a professional organizer) to do a virtual presentation for their chapter (and anyone else who wants to buy a ticket) on the Power of Enough. Professional organizers are accustomed to talking with clients about identifying when they have enough physical stuff. In this presentation, Shannon and I will be talking about when to know you’ve put enough effort into something.

We embraced our motto “Let it be easy” when we set a couple of parameters before saying yes to the invitation. We requested a very informal presentation: No Powerpoint, no pre-set talking points. Instead, this will be an unrehearsed Zoom conversation where Shannon and I will discuss the power of enough (like we do on our podcast) and then answer questions from the audience.

The presentation will be on Wednesday, November 11, from 6:30 to 8:00 pm Pacific time. (This is the time frame for the chapter meeting; our presentation will take about 60 minutes of it, but I’m not sure which 60 minutes.) It occurs to me that some of you who read this blog might enjoy attending. The fee for those who aren’t NAPO-SFBA members is $30. For more information and to register, visit the event page on the NAPO-SFBA website.

We’re excited to model the power of enough in our presentation (as we do in our podcast)!

Join me for The Imperfect Genealogist on May 18 on Zoom

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I am excited to be presenting the May program for the North Hills Genealogists, a genealogy society based north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ll be giving The Imperfect Genealogist, the talk I developed for RootsTech. It will be held via Zoom on Monday, May 18, at 7 pm eastern time. You can learn more about North Hills Genealogists on their website.

I just found out that the meeting is not limited to society members and was given permission to post about it here, in case any blog readers are interested in attending.

I’ll be talking about ways perfectionism can get in the way of enjoyable and productive genealogy research, along with some areas in genealogy where good enough isn’t good enough, in my opinion. I’ll also be discussing some strategies for letting go of perfectionism. The idea for the talk was sparked by the podcast I co-host, Getting to Good Enough.

The presentation will be conducted via Zoom. You don’t need to have a Zoom account to participate, but you do have to sign up online to participate.

 

 

Please help with my RootsTech talk

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How does perfectionism get in your way?Back in late September, I created a post asking for your input on the impact of perfectionism in genealogy as I worked on my RootsTech talk, “The Imperfect Genealogist.” I was surprised when I didn’t get much of a response and I then I discovered that an updated security package with my GoDaddy account had turned off commenting as a default and I didn’t realize it.

I’m getting back to work on my talk (it’s due next month!) and thought I’d try again. Thanks very much to those of you who replied to the September post after I got comments up and running! I’d love to hear more from others in comments to this post. Here’s what I wrote in September.

I think about perfectionism a lot. It’s the topic of the podcast I co-host with my friend and life coach Shannon Wilkinson every week. But lately I’ve been thinking about it particularly in relation to genealogy, since I’m working on my RootsTech talk next year, called “The Imperfect Genealogist.”

Here are some ways I have seen perfectionism causing genealogists to stall in their research:

  • You don’t know how to do source citations correctly, so you don’t do them at all.
  • You haven’t come up with the perfect way to organize your research, so you just keep doing research without organizing it.
  • You don’t have a whole weekend to devote to your genealogy research, so you don’t do any research at all.
  • You don’t know the very best way to preserve your archival documents, so you let them languish in an unsafe, non-archival environment. (We discussed this very thing on Episode 20 of Getting to Good Enough.)

It’s your turn. Can you help me out and let me know  how perfectionism can get in the way of your genealogy life? Please share the things you tend to get perfectionistic about and the impact it can have. (If you’ve figured out strategies for getting past that, I’m all ears!) Just leave a comment on this post. I’m sure you’ll contribute things I haven’t even thought of!

 

Where does perfectionism trip you up?

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How does perfectionism get in your way?I think about perfectionism a lot. It’s the topic of the podcast I co-host with my friend and life coach Shannon Wilkinson every week. But lately I’ve been thinking about it particularly in relation to genealogy, since I’m working on my RootsTech talk next year, called “The Imperfect Genealogist.”

I have about ways perfectionism can cause genealogists to stall in their research. Here are a few examples:

  • You don’t know how to do source citations correctly, so you don’t do them at all.
  • You haven’t come up with the perfect way to organize your research, so you just keep doing research without organizing it.
  • You don’t have a whole weekend to devote to your genealogy research, so you don’t do any
  • You don’t know the very best way to preserve your archival documents, so you let them languish in an unsafe, non-archival environment (we discussed this very thing on Episode 20 of Getting to Good Enough.)

It’s your turn. You guys always provide such great insights I thought I’d ask you. Does perfectionism ever get in the way of your genealogy life? If so, please share what things you tend to get perfectionistic about and the impact it can have. (If you’ve figured out strategies for getting past that, I’m all ears!) Just leave a comment on this post. I’d sure appreciate your help. I’m sure you’ll contribute things I haven’t even thought of!

Edited to add: I wrote this post after I installed a new firewall on my site but before I learned that the firewall by default blocked comments! If you tried to comment, I apologize. It’s fixed now; please do try again!