Calendar Tip

A couple weeks ago I mentioned the Legacy webinar about organizing.

Last week I finally got a chance to listen to it. Fortunately I subscribe to the webinars as the free access time period had expired by the time I got a chance to listen. I think perhaps that is an indication of how much I need help with organizing! 

Yes I've needed help organizing since early on!

Like many webinars there were many ideas and tips in there and I did not absorb all of them. It is one of those webinars that is good to go back to and listen to again and again. There just seems to be more nuances and ideas popping out each time you hear it.

One idea that I took from the webinar that I am very grateful for is a tip on using Google Calendars. This would work for many different calendar apps and even for a paper one if you use that. However, it was something that Lisa Louise Cooke said about this particular app that I already used that jumped out at me. You can create many different calendars that appear on the same page, assigning different colors to each one. Okay, so this is a basic concept and one that I already use. I have a calendar on there, I also have any of Rich’s appointments in a different color and holidays appear in a third color. Each can have their display turned on or off with a click on the side panel. Easy, simple, and something I’ve been doing for years. No big deal.

However, when Lisa was discussing this, she mentioned having a separate calendar for genealogy projects. Suddenly a light bulb went off in my head! Wait a minute! It doesn’t need to be a person! I can have a calendar and a unique color for my genealogy projects. Another color can be assigned for client work. The menu planning I’ve been trying to do on a paper calendar to streamline cooking and grocery shopping- that could be yet another color on there! Suddenly I was realizing I could pull all these things together in one place. It would not be a jumble of confusion on the calendar- I could just turn on and off the ones I wanted to see at any given moment.

Many people are probably laughing at such a simple idea being a break through on organizing. However, this is often how such things work. What is simple and obvious to one person takes another a longer time to reach. This simple concept has been very helpful to me in organizing. It is giving me hope in sorting out some of the messes I have and finally figuring out what I have and where I need to go next.

Here is my challenge for you. What simple thing do you do that helps with your genealogy or with getting things done so that you have time to do genealogy? Think about it. Something that is small and obvious to you might not be to others. Write about it. It could be just a few sentences on a Facebook or Twitter post. Just write and share it with others and encourage them to also share a small tip that they might have. All of us together can discover ways to save hours of time to do what we really want to do- find those elusive ancestors!