Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

Who needs a staycation?

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nostaycationWeek before last, I blogged at my excitement over the prospect taking this week off to devote to genealogy research. You know what they say about the best laid plans.

I ended up having to schedule clients Thursday and Friday and yesterday was occupied with details surrounding moving back into our newly renovated kitchen (hooray!). So my staycation shrunk to two days.

My first thought was to abandon the idea and try to find another week to take off. But then I realized that (a) that week would probably never come and (b) I don’t need huge blocks of time to accomplish research. As I documented during my first 30 x 30 challenge, I can get a whole lot done by doing just a little every day.

I have other business- and kitchen-related things I need to do today and tomorrow, so I’m going to commit to grabbing at least two hours each day to do research. That’s four hours more than I did last week.

I have the week-long NGS research trip to the Allen County Public Library to look forward to in August. So I know I’ll get that intensive research time I crave. But in the meantime, I’m going to try to devote at least four hours a week during the eight weeks leading up the trip–taking time where I can find it–to get some research done.

This is an important reminder that, as appealing as a staycation is,  I don’t need a big chunk of time to get work done!

My genealogy staycation!

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This morning I looked at my calendar and realized that, at this moment in time, I have a free week in a couple of weeks. That is, I have no organizing appointments scheduled for the week of June 20 (well, a tentative one on Friday the 24th). Thankfully, I’ve been in business long enough to see that as the blessing it is, rather than freaking out that my business is failing (which it certainly isn’t).

A few years, I wrote a post here about my dream genealogy staycation. I fantasized about what I’d do if I had a week to devote to genealogy research. When I looked at that gloriously empty week on my calendar this morning, I realized that I could make that dream a reality! So I’m going to block out the week and start making plans about how I’ll spend it. Lucky for me, that blog post is a great starting point.

I’m getting another amazing opportunity when I go on the NGS research trip to the Allen County Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, in August. I think my staycation will be a great precursor to that. The work I do this month should help make that trip even more productive.

How about you? Have you ever taken a chunk of time off to work on your genealogy? Did it meet your expectations? And do you have any suggestions for me?

Doing the research vs. organizing the research

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doing research vs organizing researchI suspect that most genealogy enthusiasts prefer doing research to organizing the results. A large part of the fun (for me, anyway) is playing detective and making discoveries. That’s thrilling. But if we don’t process our finds, what good do they do us?

I was thinking about that today as I thought about whether to do some genealogy research or spend the time working on organizing my research. I feel I’ve been so out of touch with my research (still blaming my puppy, Bix, and my long work hours) that I don’t even know where I stand with anything. That makes me feel a bit paralyzed.

I could jump right back into the research and maybe have some fun, but I think I’d be better off taking stock of where things stand organization-wise. And for me that means:

  • Looking over my genealogy to-do list
  • Looking at my progress tracker and updating it if necessary
  • Looking on my hard drive for electronic files related to the Adams family (this quarter’s family) and filing them
  • Pulling out my backlog box marked “genealogy stuff to read” that I didn’t even remember I had and going through the contents. I just peeked in it and it contains documents picked up at genealogy conferences in 2015. I suspect I’ll be able to pretty swiftly dispatch a lot of it. If not, I’ll add items to my genealogy task list (like I described in my blog post, Banishing the stubborn pile).
  • Updating my task list with the tasks that will inevitably result from this activity.

That’s a pretty long list, but it shouldn’t take too long. And, I remind myself, I don’t have to do all of it. Any effort here will be beneficial. Once I have a better handle on what I’m doing and what steps I need to do to improve my organization, I’ll have a clearer head. And I’ll have more direction when it comes to doing actual research. Something tells me it will be much easier to get started researching then!

Photo above taken by me using the SHOTBOX tabletop photo light studio.

January 30 x 30 challenge update

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30x30 challengeI’m halfway through the 30 days of my 30 x 30 challenge. Back in August when I last did this, I was able to post about my wonderful progress and how I hadn’t missed a day.

Alas, that’s not the case this time. I underestimated the impact of our puppy, Bix, on my productivity and available time. As I mentioned a month ago, Bix joined our family on December 13 as an eight-week-old puppy. He’s now 13 weeks old and growing up to be a very well behaved puppy. But during those five weeks he required a whole lot of attention to keep him out of trouble. Couple that with January being my busiest month for my organizing business (which I should have taken into account) and I find I’m doing little but working with clients, watching and training Bix, and handling essential admin tasks for Peace of Mind Organizing.

In other words, I’ve barely done any genealogy research in the past two weeks. I’ve managed 30 minutes just a few days. If I didn’t have the challenge going, I’m confident I wouldn’t have done any!

But I’m not throwing in the towel. Instead I’m regrouping and thinking about the lessons of the month so far:

  • My genealogy research isn’t going anywhere, but my puppy is growing up fast.
  • Serving my organizing clients obviously has to be a priority.
  • The fact that I’m not researching daily doesn’t devalue the research I’ve been able to do.
  • Fear of failure shouldn’t stop me from starting challenges like these. It’s okay not to succeed.
  • I’ll be starting up a new challenge as soon as the time is right. I love these challenges!
  • Next time I do a 30 x 30 challenge I want to take a close look at the calendar and consider competing factors. This was an ill-timed challenge, despite it being the first of the year
  • Some research is better than no research. I’ll keep doing what research I can.

I’m thrilled that some of you are taking part in the challenge and reporting on your successes on the blog. Please continue doing so!

I imagine it will be at least a couple of months before Bix is less labor-intensive. Until then, I’m going to cut myself a break!