I don’t know if it’s because I’m a professional organizer or if it’s just how I’m wired, but I love setting goals. I set goals for my personal life, my genealogy life, and, of course, my organizing business every year. I typically take a one-day retreat (I detailed how that works in this blog post on my organizing blog last year) devoted to reviewing last year’s goals and setting goals for the coming year.
These are the genealogy goals I set for 2018:
- Come up with a scheme for keeping me focused
- Index at least four hours a month at Family Search
- Attend at least three genealogy conferences
- Attend at least one week-long institute
- Go on a research trip
- Improve my research log and/or my capturing of tasks
- Add 300 sources to Reunion
- Create the habit of researching daily
In looking at them today, I’m feeling pretty good, except for the indiexing. Not only did I do no indexing, I didn’t even remember that I wanted to index! Here’s the rest of the scorecard:
- I feel like I became much more focused in my research–sticking with the Adams line the first six months and shifting to the Rasco line in the latter half of the year helped me stay focused on my research in general. And my short sessions have kept me quite focused.
- I attended three genealogy conferences: RootsTech in Salt Lake City, the Missouri State Genealogical Association conference in Columbia, Missouri and the St. Louis Genealogy Conference. In addition, I attended a House History workshop from the Missouri Historical Society and a day-long DNA workshop presented by Diahan Southard, sponsored by the St. Louis Genealogical Society.
- I had to shelve my goal of attending a week-long institute and taking a research trip because my husband was laid off this year and it didn’t seem prudent. He’s happily employed now, so perhaps I can add those things to my 2019 goals.
- I’m not sure I improved my research log but I did improve my frequency of use. The habit of recording my research activities every session (informally in Evernote) is now ingrained. That’s huge!
- I was sure I’d added 300 sources to Reunion until I looked. I have just shy of 900 sources and added 185 of them in 2018. I think that goal was just unrealistic.
- As for daily research, I did better some months than others. These last two months have been much more spotty. But according to my research log, I rocked it in January, February, March, July, August and October. I feel pretty good about that, though there’s room for improvement.
My annual retreat this year will be on December 26. Once again, I’ll include my genealogy research goals in the planning process. Incidentally, a tool that I’ll be using in the process is the Good Enough Goal Setting workbook + audio that my Getting to Good Enough podcast co-host, Shannon Wilkinson, and I created. I encourage you to check it out!
Do you set goals for your genealogy research? Please feel free to share them in the comments, if you’d like!
My genealogy retreat is starting on 12/26 also! My child is going to Florida with her dad until New Year’s Day, so I’m using the week to “go to genealogy school” and watch all my videos and read the books I have in prep for a great 2019.
Goals:
1. One trip to Ontario to try to find out how my 2xG grandfather died.
2. AFTER,doing a real research plan, good research log in preparation ahead of time.
3. Launch my genealogy site (cousin bait) after the new year — I’m taking a Family Tree class to help me.
4. Start getting all my scanned files and downloads properly named and connected to Rootsmagic — lose my dependence on the Ancestry Tree. I’ve got a ton of files so it would be sheer drudgery to do it all in one year — I’ll just tie it to work on individuals and lines. I’ve got files with all different naming schemes, but I set standards in Evernote and am following them.
5. I started using Evidentia, which got me finally learning how to do citations.
6. I started finally using a Research Log for real and see the benefits. I’m going to start trapping new sources (and citations) in the log.
7. Basically, I’m trying to rebuild my foundation this year so I have quality work.
I’m ready.
Go, Joy, Go!! That’s an ambitious set of goals but even if you only do a portion of it, you’ll have achieved so much! Best of luck with all of it!
Thanks! Even though my kiddo came home after only one day away, i still did part of my “genealogy school” and it was awesome!
That’s terrific!
I’m dealing with a hot mess here, and I wish you lived closer because I could really use a personal organizer. My genealogy goal for 2019 is one thing. Learn to use a research log. I’ve been researching for years without one, and I’m tired of rehashing things because I don’t remember I’ve been there before.
Learning to use a research log is a fabulous goal, Nancy! It will reap use dividends. If you were serious about needing an organizer, feel free to email me and I can see if I know organizers where you live (or talk with you about helping you over the phone).
Having just visited the house where my ancestors lived in 1913, I’m reenergized to finish a book I’m doing based on my great-aunt’s 1913-1914 diary. I love research so it’s been fun expanding on her cryptic entries. These last two days have been quietly exciting, visualizing where she was when she mentions various rooms! Imagining my grandfather coming home from school. Hoping also to research my Irish ancestors in 2019.
What a wonderful project! Enjoy. Thanks so much for commenting.
I lost something today (not family history, just an important list) that forced me to search through so much STUFF. I”m pretty organized, or so I thought, but I realized that I am DROWNING in historical data! So many books. So many papers. I have a good handle on my ancestry research, until I get seriously interrupted and lose my thread and the PILES of material building up. PLEASE EXPLAIN exactly what you mean by a research log and how to create one.
Mary, the research log I refer is real-time logging of research sessions. I don’t think a research log will help your current pile-busting effort. You might find this blog post helpful, though: https://organizeyourfamilyhistory.com/start-2022-with-a-clean-research-desk/.
Thanks, Janine.
Love the BACKLOG BOX suggestion. I’d already decided that boxes had to be my way out of the backlog so this is real encouragement to move forward and get through the backlog piece by piece, box by box, on a regular basis. I’m pretty good at the desk clearance on a regular basis!
Going forward, I’m still really interested in the research log as I’m deep into ancestry research after over 20 years. I have a masters degree in history so I pick up so/too much fascinating social, economic and political history along the way that I try to incorporate into my own family record to set it into its own historical context. I’ve already been thinking about logging as I’m not good at goal setting but tend to go where the research leads me, and that can be a rabbit warren of dead ends!
Mary
Mary, I think the tidbits that you are gathering make your family tree much more fascinating than a group of names and dates! So please don’t discount their value.
A research log could be a place where you record those tidbits, though in my genealogy life, I put them in the notes section of a person’s record in my genealogy software (though I’m gathering as much as you are). If you’re a spreadsheet person, Thomas MacEntee offers a free research log template (as well as a bunch of other great free stuff) here: https://genealogybargains.com/free-genealogy-cheat-sheets/.