Welcome to the November 2012 Daily Documentation Workshop! I'm Megan from Document Life Workshop and the Nerd Nest and I am an avid documenter of the everyday.
Think of this workshop as a regimen: a daily workout aimed to help you make documenting your everyday life part of your routine.
Here’s the goal: Everyday this month, take one photo and write a little bit of journaling.
It sounds simple, but becoming a dedicated recorder of life requires a perspective shift. This is a workshop aimed at helping life documentation to become second nature to you. Your life is important: make a habit of doing a little something to document it everyday. Things that seem static are ephemeral. You never know what will change! Taking a photo and writing a little bit everyday is enough.
It’s all about the big picture: don’t worry if you “miss a day”, don’t feel “caught up”, or are feeling particularly uninspired. Don’t stop if you fall behind. Make this project as simple or as complicated as you want it to be: do as little as taking a photo with Instagram and adding a caption or as much as setting up a photo shoot and writing pages and pages of your thoughts out. The point is to stretch yourself: wherever you are now as a life documenter, push to do a little more.
Why everyday?
To some people, documenting everyday seems a little excessive. When my husband and I started our 365 Project in 2011, people thought we were a little crazy.
People would ask, "Do you really need to know what happens everyday in your life?"
The answer is no, but that's not the point. Documenting everyday gets you in the habit of documenting. If you make an effort to document everyday, you end up capturing AMAZING things. You get a clearer view of your life, and you end up recording things that seem permanent but are really fleeting. Looking back on the photos and words from last year, I am so thankful that we tackled that project. There weren't keeper photos and words everyday, but we ended up with more great photos and words than we had from any year previously.
Now it's 2012, and I didn't specifically set out to do a 365, but I still take photos and write everyday. I actually have twice as much documentation for 2012 than I did in 2011! That's because documenting the everyday is now a wonderful habit.
What to document.
Document whatever you think is important. Document what you remember. Document the things that make up your life right now. Your life might not seem all that interesting to you, but that's because it's normal to you!
If you get stuck, check out the Daily Doc | Nov 2012 handout.
The handout has 30 photo prompts and 30 writing prompts. These prompts are open and should be applicable to you no matter where you are in life or the world.
I'll be posting daily documentation here twice a day: At 5:00 AM CST I'll post photos and words inspired by the handout. In the evening (at a non-specific time), I'll post my unplanned documentation for the day (which probably means cute kid photos, because that's what I like documenting most).
The morning posts will be written the day before, and the evening posts will be written the day they post. I'm not scheduling ahead of time because I want to do this project with you to show you it is possible.
How to document.
Make this project easy on yourself: choose the recording process that works best for you! Here are a few ideas of how to document:
Write your daily journaling in a document on your computer, in a journal, or in a blog post. Take a photo with your camera, phone, a screen shot with your computer, or with a camera. Post a picture with a caption on a social media site like Flickr, Instagram or Facebook everyday. Facebook is great because it's easily to go back and see your document later with the timeline feature. (Use the hashtag #dailydoc !) Do whatever works for you!
What do I do with all of this documentation once I have it?
It's up to you! This project is just as much about the process as it is the end product.
Here are some ideas on how to use this documentation:
- Write a daily or weekly blog post, like my 365 posts from last year.
- Keep a simple journal with photos and words.
- Make a digital book with your words and photos.
- Create a mini album.
- Choose your favorite documentation and create a few traditional scrapbooking layouts, or look for common themes to create layouts.
- Create a collage of the photos in a November calendar.
- Use the documentation in a Project Life spread. (Which is what I'll be doing.)
- Save it for later.
- Don't forget to link-up what you do in the daily posts or put your work into the Document Life Workshop Flickr group for feedback!
Don't get caught up on doing something with the documentation: focus on recording it. I'm able to do a weekly scrapbooking spread for last year for my Project Life 2011 in 2012 project because the documentation is already there, ready and waiting to be used.
Daily Doc is a monthly workshop that will cost $12 in the future, but is free this month!
Feel free to share the URL all you wish, but remember to ask your friends to subscribe to the Document Life Workshop newsletter using the following link: http://documentlifeworkshop.us5.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=e148cae48c77a6af86050abad&id=8be8fdb998, because for every 25 new subscribers this month, we're giving away a spot in the December 2012 edition of Daily Doc!
This workshop will also contain a special 50% off discount code for the December Workshop!
I can't wait to get a peek into your lives! If you have any questions, let me know in the comments section!
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