I’ve been told I have a poor memory. Friends will recount games we used to play in our childhood and I’ll have no recollection. I’ll try and think back to the situations at work that had me so upset a few years ago and come up blank on any of the details. What I’ve realized is that I’ve been documenting my life since childhood and haven’t had to rely on my memory when I want to remember the past – I have a complete record!
Being able to bring to mind the emotions and mindsets and experiences of the past can connect you to your former self and help you see how much you’ve evolved and grown. You can appreciate who you were, remind yourself of the change that is possible, and reminisce on the wonderful life you’ve had the privilege to lead. I take great enjoyment in the process of documenting my life and knowing that, at a minimum, I’ll be able to look back on my experiences, and maybe they’ll prove of interest to someone else in the future too.
If you’ve been thinking about how fast time goes or want to have the opportunity to be more introspective, consider creating a practice of documenting your life. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Journaling
If you’ve ever read my blog before, chances are you know how strongly I believe in the value of journaling. I wrote an entire guide about how you can make journaling work for you, as well as a post about my personal journey with writing, and journal prompts to help you think about the future. When it comes to using journaling to document your life, I’ve found that incorporating more than just words is both fun in the moment and more interesting to look back on.
Try noticing the small scraps that come into your life – tickets, maps, playbills – and save them to accompany your journal entries. This is a great blend between a true scrapbook (which requires more time and creativity then I personally have to spare) and a classic journal, and it helps bring memories back even more vividly when you flip through the pages in the future.
Postcards
I have to give credit where credit is due. My parents purchased a postcard whenever we visited a new place or local site and wrote the date and a line or two about our experience on it. They popped them into a photo album and now I have an entire collection of the places I’ve been. I used many of the postcards from my childhood to make a piece of art for my son’s room and now I’ve started the same tradition for him. I’ve expanded upon it by printing a photo of us at the place to include in the album and I look forward to the day that I’ll be able to hand him his album of adventures just like my parents did for me.
Photo Albums
Speaking of albums, one of the easiest ways to document your life is to take photos. With the powerful cameras on our phones, the opportunity to take a photo is never out of reach. Notice the large and small moments in your life that you want to revisit, and intentionally capture them. I have a complete post on organizing and printing photos, though I have changed my backup methodology. I now use Google Photos as my cloud storage solution and find it superior to every other app I’ve tried. I also have an external hard drive that gets updated with my photos and videos every six month, along with printing out the best photos and adding them to my running family photo album. Since having my son, I’ve become especially protective of my photos and videos!
Memory Box
What do you do with all of the other items that come into your life that don’t fit in a journal or an album? The cards and letters and small items that hold significance? This is the perfect opportunity for a memory box. Any box will do. I have a small decorative trunk that I used during my high school graduation party that I’m getting close to outgrowing, so I’ll be searching for something bigger in the future. The beauty of a memory box is that it can be as organized or messy or fancy or plain as you want.
I will caution that you should avoid letting it be a dumping ground and I advocate doing a clean out yearly. I like to go through my memory box around the holidays to appreciate the past and clear out the things I really don’t need to hold on to anymore, like cards that just have a signature and no personalized note.
Are there any practices you have for documenting your life that you love?
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