I do envy people that are starting afresh right now. No ancient history, no past piles yet unfinished, no thirty-three years worth of questions lying dusty and unresolved. No old papers, yellowing in ancient places, searching for their spot in time and eternity. No documents or photos being devoured in plastic file boxes or plastic sleeves, unprotected from acidic chemicals. No issues with boxes and boxes of photos vexing them and yet to be sorted, categorized, scanned and filed electronically, as well as tangibly.
If you are one of these people, starting now, be happy! You have every possible advantage right in front of you. If you are one of these people languishing now with all of the above concerns~take heart! You can and you will get organized if you stick with it. There are so many helps now and people willing to guide you either forward or backward as needed. You will find the end of that maze eventually.
Here are some things I have learned in the last few weeks that have made a big difference for me.
1. Know your style of learning. Are you an auditory learner, a visual learner, a hands-on type of learner or some combination of the above? Does taking and analyzing your notes help you to remember? Does teaching, writing, etc. help you retain information? More than one teacher is one chapter ahead of their students, right?
I have always known that taking notes helps me to learn and remember but I have just recently learned that is only half of it. After I learn something I need to carry it with me awhile by actually analyzing my notes and transcribing them into a narrative form. That really helps me. Then I need to file that in a place I can lay my hands on it in 30 seconds. Taking notes and then putting them in a pile or losing them folded in a book or notebook some place almost guarantees a short term kind of learning. Time marches on relentlessly, but learning for me needs to be savored.
As an example, my genealogy mentor and I exchange copious amounts of email. (God bless him!) One day he was helping me figure out our scanner and telling me a lot about the inner workings of the machine and how to scan and save documents and photos. The thread of emails on this subject had about six detailed entries for me from him. Tuesday I took all those emails from my electronic email that I have organized into folders right in my email program, printed them out and analyzed them. I then created a narrative analysis of what he taught me so that I could understand it. I don't need to know everything about scanning right now. When I felt confident that I understood it well enough to do what I need to do as a scanner, I filed it in my How-To Genealogy/Scanning folder. Now if I forget at some point I know exactly where it is.
2. Devise a plan of filing and organization that works for you. There is no perfect way that suits everyone. You have to come up with your own method of how to do it so that you can find your own things. Take lots of advice from others but adapt what they tell you to a style that works with your brain, not theirs. I will share exactly what I do next time.
3. Change some of your paradigms. When I first came back to genealogy I thought that now that we have computers, everything needs to be stored electronically. I got on that and also thinking, 'Ah, no more papers to deal with, hooray!'
Wrong. You still will have a plethora of paper; you still need to have paper files in addition to filing electronically. As an example, you will scan your documents electronically and file in your computer folders but what about your original documents? You are not going to throw them away, right? So you will have various methods, not just one for saving your information.
That was something I had to wrap my head around and catch a vision of it that worked for me. In addition to my mentor/teacher, I asked a few other people how they do it. What I gleamed from all of them has now become something that works for me...so far. I am sure I will tweak it as I go along but I feel I have a good starting point now. Stress, gone in that department, whew!
4. Ask the Right Question. We all have holes in our understanding and comprehension of anything we are trying to learn. With genealogy and family history I have had to overcome lots obstacles and still do everyday in the realms of hardware, software, technology in general, how and where to research and capture my information, wading through lots of source options, my time management, etc.
I have just discovered recently that it is important that I analyze where my issues are and learn to ask the exact question for which I need an answer. That I am sure sounds a little obvious but what I am saying is that I have to do my homework first and then ask for clarification or guidance. My question needs to be narrow in scope so that I can fill in those holes. As an example, "Can you tell me how to create a folder on a PC?" as opposed to "How do I store my information electronically?" One step and concept at a time it starts to make sense.
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