Organize Your Family History

Stay focused and happy while exploring your roots

January 2023 30 x 30 mid-month check in

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We’ve passed the mid-point of our 30 x 30 challenge. How is it going?

I’ve been pleased with my ability to remember to do research and then actually do it this month. I have missed three days of the past 16 and I’ve averaged 32 minutes a day, so I’m track. Two of the 13 research sessions were spent taking webinars. One was watching Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. And one was helping a friend with her genealogy and giving her a bit of a tutorial about Ancestry and Family Search. So it wasn’t all research on my family.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been good about logging my research in my simple Evernote research log, thanks largely to my putting a star in my spreadsheet every time I did it.

I go to Washington state tomorrow to settle my dad’s estate. I’m hopeful that won’t get in the way of daily research, though I might cut myself a little slack since I have a 12-hour trip door to door and my first flight leaves at 5:50 a.m.

I’m interested to hear how it’s going for you. Please let me know in the comments!

Motivated by a little star

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I’m in the midst of this month’s 30 x 30 challenge, where I’m trying to do 30 minutes of genealogy research a day. I’m also trying to whittle my backlog of unprocessed documents down and to remember to enter my work in my research log each session.

I’ll be posting a mid-month update next week, but today I wanted to tell you about a little tweak I made to my workflow that has proven to be very helpful in getting to me use my research log.

Four or five years ago I created a spreadsheet where I can keep track of my backlog and also log how many minutes I researched. I usually use this spreadsheet during 30 x 30 challenges and I just start a new tab for each challenge. (You can read more about this spreadsheet in my post Keeping track of my backlog busting from a year ago.)

This year I added a column where I place a little star after I log the day’s research. It’s crazy to me how rewarding having that little star is. (You can see it in the close-up above.) It not only provides a visual reminder to log the session log, but it also gives me a little jolt of happiness because I’ve earned a star.

I love it when I can come up with easy way to motivate myself!

 

New year, new 30 x 30 challenge

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I’m launching a new 30 x 30 challenge for the month of January. Boy, do I need it! After virtually ignoring my research since my father passed away at the end of August, I’m ready to gently return to it. I’ve started by doing a little bit each day this week and am ready to keep a commitment to doing genealogy research (or genealogy organizing) for 30 days in a row. The commitment is typically for 30 minutes a day but I’ll be happy if I average 30 minutes a day over the course of the month.

I’m going to focus on eliminating my backlog of downloaded files, taking at least one class or webinar each week, and basically getting a handle on where I am with my research.

I’ve been doing periodic 30 x 30 challenges since August of 2015 and I find they almost always help me get back on track. I found the accountability of the challenge to be really motivating.

If you’d like to join me in committing to doing daily research in January 2023, please comment below. Feel free to let everyone know what you’ll be working on (but don’t feel like you have to). In the middle of a month, I’ll have a check-in post where you can report your progress. And at the end of the month, we’ll have a wrap-up post.

January is always a good time for me to try to create beneficial habits. Not only am I excited by the 30 x 30 challenge, I’m also really excited about Yoga with Adriene’s 30-day yoga journey, which I’ve been doing every year since 2019. If you do yoga, or are curious about doing yoga, I invite you to join me in that challenge as well!

Keeping genealogy goals attainable

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I’m a big goal setter. Am I a big goal achiever? Not so much when it comes to genealogy goals. Every year I set them (and blog about them) and then I never look at them again. This year, I created a vision board (we recorded a podcast episode about that) and “Little and Often” is part of my vision board, to remind me to work on genealogy frequently.

So this year, in an effort to actually remember and attain my genealogy goals I am making them very simple. Here they are:

  • Research little and often
  • Take one genealogy webinar or class a week
  • Have no documents in my backlog on the last day of every month

Those goals feel attainable and easy to remember. I am going to have a 30 x 30 challenge for the month of January, which will help me stick with the little and often part of it. (Watch for a post about that next week.)

How about you? Do you set genealogy goals? If so, do you achieve them?