New Year, New Approach

Getting Organised with a bullet journal could help me Build a Family Tree Book 

So another year has flown by and it is that time of the year again when we resolve to get things straight and write that Family History book we have been promising. So here is what I plan to do this year and a bit about how I am changing the way I tackle the organisation challenge.

At the end of last year I discovered Bullet Journaling and decided that this year I was going to give it a try. I hope that it will help me to become more organised and allow me to look back at what I can achieve. Several others are also starting this so you may see posts from them on genealogy blogs.

I have gathered some useful links in a collection on Google+ if you think you might be interested.

As part of this I had to decide how I would approach this and what tools I would use. I started with a cheap notebook but soon realised that the pages were too thin. 

I then ordered a relatively expensive notebook known as a LEUCHTURM 1917 which has numbered pages. The order could not be fulfilled so I had to find an alternative. 

The idea of having a book I could add to and customise appealled to me but the Levenger system that some in the US were using was not available here in the UK. Staples do a similar system known as ARC and I was looking at this as an alternative. 

Before, I purchased what I would need, I was discussing what I wanted to do with others. It was at this point that it came to me that, what I needed I already had, sitting in a drawer at home, waiting for me to use it, a springback binder. These are sold to family historians to help them create their own books. The same company also sell archival quality paper and other items to help us preserve our history.

Now I have spent time creating pages for my journal and using it to help me with my organisation schedule. It is a project which will evolve. When I originally bought my binders I also obtained a set of preprinted Family Tree Book Pages included with these was a discount code to order a pdf copy of the pages to use for additional pages. I bought a copy yesterday and had thought I could just print the pages for me to fill in by hand. However on further investigation today I find the sheets are fillable pdf and I can cut and paste information from my family history software program.

Since the older family members may prefer to see my research in book format I hope to use these forms as a starting point. The one thing I do like with these forms is the emphasis on adding the sources.

I am hoping to produce hand written pages for people I am currently working on so I can see where there are gaps. 
I started doing something similar in this book.

If I can easily translate the information into a page which I can printout, and replace if I need to, it will be more flexible especially if I later find I have missed something. I can easily correct without having to rewrite a whole section.

Working with paper rather than just in the digital can help with thought processes and creativity.

Next month I will report on how the bullet journal has progressed and if I have found it useful for my genealogy organisation.

If you are using a bullet journal have you found it helpful particularly for genealogy projects. 
Please share any thoughts you may have on this topic in the comments.