Time Capsules

When the family gets together at the holidays, a fun activity can be creating a time capsule.  My kids and I have created time capsules at the end of the year for short term storage and then packed them away with the Christmas decorations.  We include goals for the year and reflections on the year past. It's fun to open them next Thanksgiving weekend when we get the decorations out. 

A time capsule is “a historic cache of goods or information, usually intended as a method of communication with future people” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_capsule). They are a great way to capture this moment in time for the future. Creating a time capsule can cause your family to pause now and reflect about what is important to them and what brought them to the point they are now. The creation of a time capsule can spark some good discussions in your family about what is important to you.
You can ask everyone in the family to contribute to a time capsule. They might want to contribute a tangible item, but also encourage them to add something that will really tell about their lives now. A personal note, pictures, or a schedule of what daily life is like could be really interesting down the road. The capsule can be any container as long as it is labeled and kept sealed in a safe place. And it needn’t be sealed for long. One year, five years, or ten years, can give the observer great perspective on life.

If you want a really safe time capsule container that will last a long time, check out:
https://www.futurepkg.com/
http://www.amalco.com/time-capsules.html

And for complete instructions on creating long term archival time capsules check out the Smithsonian Institutions ideas at:
https://www.si.edu/mci/english/learn_more/taking_care/timecaps.html

Good luck.  I'm sure it will cause lots of reflection for your family and give them a broader perspective on life--one of the best benefits of family history.  

Taking the Pain Out of Journaling, Part 3

So, how are we feeling about this whole journaling project? Have you applied any of the tips I gave you last time?  I hope so, but if not, that is just fine.  I have a fresh new list of tips for you below.  Shall we get started?

• Create a space specifically for recording personal events. If you build it, you will come. Well, something like that. The point is, find a place where you could conceivably set up shop and then make it special. Stock it with specifically chosen journals and pens. Make sure you have appropriate lighting, space, and outlets to plug in digital recording devices. A comfortable chair is critical as well. Consider ordering one of our decorative charts to hang in that space to remind you of why you're doing this: to link your generations together through stories and experiences. Above all, make it yours. (Maybe the youth in the family will take advantage of your special place and do a little journaling too.)
• Think outside the box. It isn't always about a dictation of events. Sometimes journaling is simply finding and recording connections in any way that works. My Zap the Grandma Gap Ancestor Activity Books are a great way to help your children or grandchildren (and yourself) record personal family details without overthinking the process. I have all sorts of activities to help make discovering and recording personal family history unique and fun. 
• Experiment with format. Give yourself different challenges for each time you journal. Maybe you'll give yourself a "One Word Sentence" challenge where you can only describe your day One. Word. At. A. Time. Or how about an acrostic poem based off of the adjective that best describes your current mood? Write a "Mad Lib" about your day but then ask your children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews to fill in the blanks. (Talk about a fun family activity right there!) The point is, break out of the idea that every journal entry needs to include grammatically correct sentences. 
• Try out a "Currently" list. This is something that I've seen on the web in blogs and other social media sites but it's something I've done for years, long before Pinterest made it cool. Simply head your page with the word CURRENTLY in all caps (just like that). Then create a list that could include any number of activities, such as "listening to" or "watching" or "eating" or "loving." You get the general idea. Go back an add a few words or a sentence that describes those verbs. It's the fastest way to bullet point a week while still actually showing your personality. Win-win all the way.
• Just do it. Sometimes we're going to have to put off washing the cereal bowls for just a few minutes. Maybe we need to skip watching a favorite TV show. Occasionally the phone just doesn't need to be answered. Whatever it is that's eating up your spare change minutes in the day, see if you can do without it a few times a week and commit to creating a consistent habit. It will make a difference in your life. I promise! 

I hope this list has you motivated to take some time to record your life a little more consistently. And if you are great about that habit already, maybe these ideas will help you shake things up in a fun and exciting way. The real point of all of this is just to inspire you to take little steps at improving your family history habits. Someday, someone you've never met will be so thankful for the time you put into your own journaling and personal history. And if they get to know a little bit about your personality along the way, well, all the better!

Taking the Pain Out of Journaling, Part 2

As promised, here is the first half of my prescription for painless journaling.  I hope you'll feel the itch to write down at least one thing about yourself or your day after reading this.  If not, come back tomorrow and we'll up the dosage.  In the meantime, take at least one of these and comment in the morning:

• Make it fun! While we all know how invaluable those personal histories with dates, full names, locations, and intimate details are, they can be a bit of a drag to actually pull together. Be sure to play around and match your journalistic styling to your personality. 
• Short and sweet. Sometimes bullet points are all we have time for. That's okay. Really! Something will always be better than nothing. 
• Interview yourself. Write down a bunch of questions as if you were interviewing someone you've always wanted to meet. Set the list aside for a week or so and then come back to it. (Or, better yet, I have a list already compiled in my Zap the Grandma Gap Power Up Workbook.) Answer those questions as if someone were interviewing you. Show your personality - answer candidly with whatever humor, sass, or passion you can muster. You're descendants will thank you! 
• Scour social media. Have you seen some of the great ideas folks are posting all over the web under the hashtag or title of "journal prompts"? It's gold, I tell you! You'll never look at journaling the same way again. 
• Make it a work of art. Along with the above tip, really look at the different ways people make a journal prompt their own. Find a great pen and some nice paper and go crazy with calligraphy or plaster your page with pictures. Write names, dates, and places as shape outlines and then interlink them to create a geometrically pleasing design. Make a journal entry entirely out of pictures taken from magazine clippings. Really, this list could go on and on and on.

Now, do you feel inspired yet?

Taking the Pain Out of Journaling, Part 1

Journaling.  The "J" Word.  It's such an important part of recording our identity and experiences for future generations but it's just so hard to actually write things down. Why is it, with all of the modern conveniences of this day and age, that we struggle to find the time to keep a consistent and accurate journal of our life's events? We usually have good intentions and tell ourselves we'll get to it as soon as we have a spare moment. And we mean it. We really do. Until suddenly, we don't.

If you want to be remembered yourself,  if you want to be one of those transitional people who passes down the family heritage and invests the next generations in all of the emotional health that family history brings, you'll be more effective at it if you keep your own journal and record things about your own life, as well as what you find out about your ancestors. 

So what can we do to help us keep our promises to ourselves to try a little harder to remember to write things down? And not just the big things, but the little things that make up our personal cosmos too. I've compiled a list of ten fun and creative journaling ideas to help motivate you to jump back on the personal documentation band wagon--or even join it, if you're new to the whole idea of journaling. I will be posting those ideas over the next couple of days, so be sure to come back for your daily dose of journaling inspiration. It really will be painless... I promise! Maybe you'll even find it a little fun.