Keeping The Balance

I once asked my good friend who is an amazing genealogist, "How do you do it all?  How do you keep up with your family that is living and still have time for the research and all the work that is involved for those who have gone before?"   The reply was simple.  "I get my daily work done as quickly and efficiently as possible. Then I do all I can for my family here at home, they come first.  Then I spend my free time doing my genealogy.  Sometimes that free time comes in the wee small hours of the night."  I like that answer because it is about balance. 

If you are passionate about anything you know how it can consume you and take you away from your priorities.  First the living and then the dead comes to mind for us as genealogists.  That is not a reason to say that I cannot do my family history work because I have a family.  It is more like saying I know what is most important and that is not an option.  Now how do I create ways to use my discretionary time to get the other important things done that I both need and want to do?  And how will I work smarter to be able to do what I want to do because it is fun and I enjoy it?  This is not about working 24-7.  It is about planning your time one week at a time so that you have a workable plan for your goals. You still need plenty of rest and relaxation and to be efficient.  You need time for learning and serving.

 For me it means working my plan....the balancing act.  It's a Good, Better, Best kind of a thing.  I think an overall plan for the month is ideal and a daily plan is great but I find that working with a week is best.  It is a nice chunk of time, easily delineated and it allows for flexibility.  If I don't get all the laundry folded before work so I can do this, I know that I have some flex time built into tomorrow.  So I am not going to sweat it.  Perfectionism is not a good thing at all.  There is no guilt in leaving our clean laundry in the dryer until we get home.   If we cram every minute of our calendar to "have tos" when can we do the "want tos?"

I think it is worth thinking about.  I study people that accomplish so much a lot.  I want to know how to work smarter.  I want this so I can have more time for writing and genealogy, not because I am a workaholic.

So all that being said, I did a lot of family history this week but not a lot of genealogy.
Some of our family was visiting and I turned my attention to recording current family history in lieu of digging up roots this past week.  To me life is family history in the making. So when something unusual is brewing in that department I turn my full attention there.  What is your plan for doing it all?  I love the old saying...Fail to Plan...Plan to Fail.  Being productive means being proactive.

Here is the current  family history I am talking about from this past week.

http://tinyurl.com/kes8dzb

 

Post Script:

It is funny but I wrote this yesterday and this landed in my mailbox this morning.  Perfect timing.  It helped me gain a perspective I hadn't thought of when feeling under the pressure of the ticking clock and the immensity of the work in front of us in genealogy.
 

"He gives us a Sabbath and we work through the weekend.

He gives us three meals a day to let us slow down and we pick fast food.

He gives us eight hours of sleep a night and we try to squeak by on far less.

We hurry when we’re afraid that we’ll be late, miss out on something, or disappoint someone. God doesn’t need to hurry because he has all the time in eternity. This is good news for us, friends. It means…"

You can find the rest of the article here.  http://tinyurl.com/l9fw6uv