Sunday, July 19, 2009

Organize My Thoughts

Last week was a week full of new information, ideas and research tools! Jumping into the blogosphere has been exciting, time-consuming, challenging but most of all fun! I am so impressed with the amount of information that is available on blogs! Additionally, the quality of the podcasts I listen to is top-notch.

I now have a great reference checklist for organizing my documents (thank you Dear Mrytle), organizing my hard drive (thank you Lisa Louise Cooke) and a fantastic flowchart (courtesy Mark Tucker @ Think Genealogy) to prove my pedigree. I know how to add GPS coordinates to my photographs (Ken Weber via Genealogy Gems Premium Podcast) and can begin using a location based genealogy technique to coordinate my search (Bernie Gracy via GGems Premium).

With all the wonderful tools I have to get organized and begin finding my elusive ancestors I should have smooth sailing, that is until I have to cite the sources once I begin achieving results. Again, I have another tool at my disposal! I'm using Legacy Family Tree and SourceWriter is my hero!! SourceWriter provides the formatting for me in order to take the guesswork out of what information I need to provide for a complete source. Thank you Legacy!

What is my next step? The next step may be the biggest...organizing my thoughts!! Who has a blog or podcast that covers that one?? I have so many things I want to accomplish so many lines I want to research, so many blogs to read, so many tweets to tweet, newsletters to read, societies to join, conferences to attend and libraries to visit. Wow, I'm tired just from typing all of that. Then there is that one nagging item that must be taken care of first, it's called my JOB!

More than a matter of organization, this is going to take time management (Geneabloggers has a post about that) and dedication on my part to stay on task. The results will be worth it and that's what this is all about anyway. I don't want someone to hand me my pedigree, the hunt is part of the fun!

I'll be taking a weeks break for a vacation and that should clear my cluttered thoughts and I will be ready to start fresh! I am looking forward to a more organized research path when I return!

No comments:

Post a Comment