The series of posts I will be writing is based on the Genealogy Do-Over Workbook by Thomas MacEntee. I highly recommend it. 🙂
This post is about the procedures and guidelines I am setting up for myself. I even made pretty Word documents, because if I make a list, that means I mean business! I hope at least!
None of this is too earth-shaking, but it’s what I should have done every time I researched. I still have to add a section where I make sure I am tracking my searches and negative results… Okay, I added it before I forgot, you can’t tell but it’s there. 😉
To organize myself better, I am also playing around with ways to keep track of what I have yet to do. Right now I am playing with an Excel file I call my “Genealogy Task Tracker”.
The hard part of this is to remember to use it. These are all things I will be working on when I am not researching. I will probably do another tab for a different list while I am researching. I added in Filters to the file so that I can just focus on Blog, or Computer, or Documents if I want. I can even turn off those Done items and not look at them while I am working on things I still need to do. The biggest thing I have done for myself during this time, has been to work on my time management. I don’t have a traditional 9 to 5 occupation. That means that I need to be extra aware of where my time is going. Sometimes before I know it the day is done and I couldn’t tell you where it went.
All this has been very helpful because I started reading and working through Mastering Genealogical Proof and things are clicking! I am definitely setting myself up for a stronger foundation in my genealogy. I know how to solve research problems I didn’t have any idea were possible before. I am better able to decide if a record is actually an original or if it is a copy that might have some wrong information on it. For the most part, it is just that I feel my eyes are seeing more than they used to.
I also got a webcam, you can’t tell from that picture but I didn’t take the picture, my webcam did! Which maybe means I could make videos if I found a need for them. I don’t know, I haven’t figured out what to use it for yet. It’s there though. I find myself getting very excited about what I am doing again. It feels good to be excited about things again.
Other posts in this series:
- Genealogy Do-Over or Go-Over?
- Genealogy Go-Over: Getting Started
- Genealogy Go-Over: Setting Guidelines <- You are here.
- Genealogy Go-Over: Actually Do-Over
- Genealogy Do-Over: Where I’m At
- Genealogy Do-Over: More Decisions
- Genealogy Do-Over: More Prep Work
- Genealogy Do-Over: My Research Toolbox
Source List:
Thomas MacEntee, The Genealogy Do-Over Workbook (Kindle Edition); GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com : downloaded 31 December 2015), Month 2.
Microsoft Office 365. My family loves to use Office, we pay the yearly subscription price and share it within our household. This beats everyone paying for a single license CD version of Office. If you don’t like Office, you can check out Google Drive or Open Office, both free alternatives.