Organize Your Family History

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What is a perfectionist?

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I co-host a weekly podcast called Getting to Good Enough, all about letting go of perfectionism so you can do more of what you love. Each week, my co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and I discuss getting past perfectionism in some aspect of life.

I’ve internalized a definition of perfectionism that I first learned from time-management guru Harold L. Taylor more than a dozen years ago. This definition rings true for me and informs a lot of what I do. I thought I’d share it with you because I think it applies to genealogy and, really, to everything we do.

A perfectionist is someone who spends more time on a task than it merits.

Next time you’re spending a lot of time trying to get something just right, ask yourself whether the task really merits that effort. It can be a great way to let good enough be good enough. And that can save you time, effort and angst.

Avoiding the paralysis of perfectionism

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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you might know that I co-host a podcast called Getting to Good Enough. Every week, my co-host Shannon Wilkinson and I publish an episode aimed toward helping listeners let go of perfectionism so they can do more of what they love.

This week we’ll publish Episode 113, but way back in Episode 20, which was published on October 11, 2018, we focused on genealogy. (I blogged about it at the time.) So far it’s our only genealogy-focused episode, though the principles we discuss every week can be applied to genealogy.

It occurred to me that some of the readers of this blog might not be aware of the podcast, or that we had a genealogy-focused episode, so I wanted to draw your attention to it. You can listen on our website or on iTunes or Google Play or Stitcher.

Letting go of perfectionism has become one of my passions and it was the subject of the RootsTech talk I gave in February, as well as the Zoom presentation I did for the North Hills Genealogists in May. I am indebted to the readers of this blog who helped me craft that presentation by responding to my request for comments on how perfectionism has been a problem in genealogy.

I urge you to give it a listen. Feel free to let me know in the comments if perfectionism sometimes gets in the way of your genealogy research and whether you’ve come up with any strategies to get past it!

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!