Organizing. It's a word that can strike fear into the heart of most genealogists. What do we do with all of that paper?! I recently sat down with professional organizer and genealogist Janine Adams for her suggestions on how to tackle all of those piles.
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Be sure to click the play button/arrow to watch the interview.
Show Notes:
Janine offered some great tips, including:
- Finding an organizing system that's right for you
- What to do with precious original documents
- How a timer can help you tackle all of those piles (this is a method that I like a lot!)
- Why you shouldn't start with your old research notes when you're transitioning to a digital system. (This one surprised me, but made a lot of sense when I thought about it!)
Links:
You can find Janine at OrganizeYourFamilyHistory.com and at Peace of Mind Organizing. She has lots of great tips over there!
If you need some help with organizing digital files (and who doesn't?!), check out my interview with Drew Smith, co-host of the Genealogy Guys podcast.
Your Turn:
What was your favorite tip? What have you found that works for you? Let me know if the comments below.
Great interview, Amy! You asked all of the right questions and Janine gave great tips and tricks. It’s so good to know that we’re all in the same boat with our large accumulation of paper files. I loved meeting you at RootsTech 2017!
Thanks, Diana! It was great meeting you, too!
You asked some awesome questions, Amy. 🙂 And I’m glad Janine emphasized there’s not a single right way of organizing.
Thanks, Nancy! I also felt better about her emphasis that there isn’t a single right way to do it!
Lots of great tips and tricks, but I think my favorite is about using a timer. I find that sometimes if you commit to doing something for 15 minutes, once you get started you keep on going! But even if you don’t, at least you’ve committed to getting the task done one step at a time and sooner or later, you can cross it off your To Do list. That’s always a great feeling.
Two of my favorite ladies. Janine got me started on doing a research/to do log. I like that she said “from this moment forward.” Great interview, Amy and Janine.
Great interview Amy. I love the timer idea too. I use that when I really need to get some cleaning done but I have a genealogy project that I can’t seem to leave alone – 15 minutes cleaning, 30 minutes researching. 😉
That’s a great idea. I prefer the genealogy part by far and then have run of time/energy by the end of the day when I rush cooking the evening meal and the house is in a mess!
Amy great information. This is my year to organize/cleanup my binders. I’m doing one family line a month and blogging about it so I keep on track. Thanks for that great input that we all need as the information can’t always be kept in our head.
Thanks for captioning this!
I think this was a very interesting post. I should be better at organizing my genealogy. I have included your post in my “Friday fidns” today at http://martinroe.com/blog/index.php/2017/03/10/friday-finds-week-10-2017/
Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you for allll the great advise.