While reflecting on 2016 I thought it would be helpful to share something I’ve done over the years that has given me great satisfaction and comfort knowing that I’ve captured my favorite memories — Creating my “Personal Yearbook”.
I got started by Journaling…
For years I was journaling nightly capturing what I was grateful for and what I learned that day. Then monthly (or when I would remember) I would look back through these notes and summarize the highlights for each month of the year.
I am always surprised at how much I rediscover when I look back through these notes – great learnings, brilliant ideas, fun times with family/friends, that I was I sure I would remember forever but didn’t!
This year I kept my highlights in an excel spreadsheet and when I got to year end there were over 150 line items – so fun to look back at these wonderful memories!
Include Physical Artifacts…
Are you like me and save wedding invitations, graduation announcements, funeral programs, concert ticket stubs, etc.
I can’t bring myself to throw them away because then I might forget them, so I throw them in a box instead and then at the end of the year I scan them adding them to my digital photo library for the year.
Or if I can remember, snap a picture of it with my iphone at the time, then the image will be in my digital library with the date of the event and I won’t have a big scanning effort at the end of the year.
The good news is…once they are digital I can throw them away!
Creating your “Personal Yearbook”
Using a digital photobook software (I recommend Mixbook.com) create your “Personal Yearbook” by arranging your journal highlights along with your scanned artifacts and digital photos for each month. I try to keep each month to about 4-6 pages (so total page count is aprox. 48-72), unless there is a special vacation or event that warrants more pages for a particular month.
Photobook softwares are fairly easy to learn through online help tutorials, and they offer creative design templates.
My first “yearbook” for my husband and I was 2011, it took me four months to complete (working on it a few hours on the weekends) because I didn’t really know what I wanted to create and what all I wanted to include. I was learning as I went along, and kept adding to it as I went along.
What I did know is that I wanted to capture the highlights from our past year as it felt like life was just whizzing by!
And, I wanted to make our digital pictures more accessible — when they are in the computer we rarely sit down and look through them. For me, there is something about looking through a photobook vs looking at pictures on a computer – might be a generational thing ;>).
It also took me longer for that first book because that year I hadn’t summarized the highlights by month from my journaling periodically throughout the year, so I had to page through 12 months of nightly notes to find the nuggets.
I now short cut that process by keeping the highlights in an excel spread sheet.
AND, I short cut the overall time it takes to create a “yearbook” because I’m creating life story photobooks for my clients all through the year – with each experience comes more speed and expertise!
If you would like to capture your memories from 2016 and start creating your own “Personal Yearbooks” I’m here to help – schedule a Complimentary Curator Session and see what other shortcuts I’ve found.
Life Story Curator lifestorycurator.com
