See the following blog posts for more about my ongoing organisation goals.
- Let's start at the beginning...Why I need to be organised and make research goals 23 May 2010.
- Unlearning what I have learned 30 May 2010.
- Sorting Saturday - Revisiting my organisation goals 12 February 2011.
Organisation goals achieved in 2011
- Organise my Bookmarks. In March I posted Sorting Saturday - Bookmarks - Part 1 and Sorting Saturday - Bookmarks - Part 2 in which I mentioned I was trying out several different online social bookmarking sites. I eventually decided on Diigo. You can see my public Diigo bookmarks here.
- Sort out all my emails, stored across several old email addresses, into one account on Gmail. I have achieved this. As well as transferring all emails from several different older email addresses I have started saving web snapshots (using the Evernote Web Clipper for Google Chrome) of messages I received through GenesReunited and other web sites and then sending the snapshots from Evernote to my all-purpose Gmail address where I save them with relevant tags (year, surname etc.). My aim is to have all my genealogy correspondence stored in one place for easier retrieval, organisation and backup. I am still investigating the use of Evernote.
- In February 2011 my organisation goals included sorting out my Twitter account (I dealt with this in Sorting Saturday - Twitter), sorting out the blogs I follow with Google Reader (see Sorting Saturday - Google Reader - Folders) and creating lists on Facebook so I can categorise my news feed (see Sorting Saturday - Facebook). Given the dynamic nature of social media web sites most the methods for organisation I mentioned in these posts are now defunct. Organising is now much easier on each site. At the moment I am not a regular daily social media user, but I do try to check every couple of days to see whats new in my news streams on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Organising the people I am following on lists has made my use of these web sites much for efficient. I have also started using the TweetDeck app for Google Chrome.
Organisation goals in progress and ongoing
- Organise a new family history folder arrangement on my computer hard drive. In November 2010 I posted Hard drive organisation for Genealogists and Family Historians in which I mentioned and linked to articles/blogs regarding methods others were using to organise their genealogy research on their computer hard drive. I have mostly finished this organisation task, but still have a few files in a 'to sort' folder.
- Organise, tag and label the photographs on my computer (digital photos as well as scanned photos and documents). I am progressing with this goal. I recently used free software Duplicate Cleaner and Auslogics Duplicate File Finder to locate and remove exact duplicate files in the photograph folders on my computer. Once I have all photographs arranged in folders as I want, I hope to beginning adding tag keywords to the files metadata with relevant names, places, events etc.
- Set up template spreadsheets to record all research and correspondence. I wrote a short blog post about research logs in January 2011 (Beginners: Research Logs in Family History) and I have since set up templates, but I have not yet begun to implement them.
- Start my new Legacy file beginning with myself and working backwards methodically, recording all sources, attaching relevant source documents and attaching photographs. I haven't started my new Legacy file yet, but I hope to do so very soon.
- Organise my Bookshelves on Google Books. Before Google Books created 'bookshelves' I used keywords/tags to categorise books which mentioned surnames and locations in which I was interested. Then one say Google changed to all of my tags were changed to bookshelves, which in my opinion were a lot less user friendly. I have started to go through each book and bookmark each on Diigo with tags/keywords instead of adding each book to numerous Google Book bookselves.
- Create a computer back-up routine. I have started to do this. I have been using GoodSync to synchronise my genealogy folder on my laptop computer and my external hard drive.
Organisation goals 'to do'
- Create research goals and detailed plans.
- Begin using Google Calendar to schedule specific times and dates for tasks related to these 2012 goals.
- Sort out all the items I have saved in my Ancestry Shoebox and all the 'maybe' information I have saved in several 'working' Ancestry Family Trees.
- Photograph/scan all the family history material I have storied in hardcopy in folders.
- Work out what to do with my collection of genealogy magazines, books and CDs.
- Sort out the 'family history box' - the general place I put family history related clippings from newspapers etc.
- Reacquaint myself with the features of the various genealogy software products I have on my computer (Legacy 7.5, RootsMagic 4, Family Tree Maker 2012, Family Historian and Personal Historian 2)
- Learn to use all the features of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10.
- Continue learning more about professional Genealogy and Family History through blogs, web sites, books and journals.
- Improve my time-management skills.
- Try to reply to emails and message board posts in a more timely manner.
- Try to write on my blog at least once or twice a week.
- Try to participate in more of Geneabloggers daily blogging prompts and my own invention Someone's Ancestor Sunday.
- Try to participate in Amy Coffin's /Geneabloggers' 52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy Blogging prompts.
- Continue with plans for my Fullerton family history book. Use Personal Historian 2 to help organise the story structure.
- Look into the possibility of using DNA in my O'Brien/Breen research.
- Continue researching the various Hehir families who came to Australia and are likely related to my ancestor Susan Hehir.
- I want to do more research in libraries, archives and cemeteries this year - I miss that as I have not been able to do much of it within the last few years.
- Newspaper research on Trove and at the library.
- Join the local family history group with my Mum.
- Continue participating in the Genealogists for Families Project on Kiva.
- Contribute text corrections more often on Trove and contribute interesting articles to the 'Genealogy Bloggers' group on Trove forums.
And because I don't have enough genealogy goals already...
I hope to add many more Church photographs to my Australian Church photos on Flickr.
During 2011 I participated in a few genealogy blogging memes (Meme: The Tech-Savvy Genealogist, Beyond the Internet Geneameme, The Ancestors' Geneameme, 99 Things Genealogy Meme - Australian). These have helped me identify a few others things I would like to achieve. The following are some I believe I could try to achieve during 2012.
- Buy an Android Smartphone and use it for genealogy research. I'm looking forward to following Jill Ball's new blog Android Genealogy.
- Contribute to a genealogy blog carnival.
- Visit all my great grandparents and great great grandparents grave sites.
- Look up local government rate books and valuation records for my ancestors.
- Look up land records for my ancestors (I have done this before but not for all ancestors)
- Consistently cite my sources.
- Reunite someone with precious family photographs or artifacts.
- Locate any document within my research files within a few minutes.
Holy cow, Aillin! You've got your hands full! Good luck with them. Great ideas all that I might want to do as well. I never even thought of organizing my social media! Happy New Year! Good luck with your goals!
ReplyDeleteYou do have a lot planned. All excellent goals. Good luck with them and please rememebr to have fun in there as well!
ReplyDeleteSomeone's Ancestor Sunday sounds interesting and is a great idea.
Wow Aillin! All the best with your goals, I'm sure you'll get most of them done as you did last year.
ReplyDeleteWhat an enormous list. I am sure that you will make a good fist of knocking it over. I'll enjoy learning from you.
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your encouraging comments :)
ReplyDelete@Cheryl organised social media has been a great way to help keep focussed. I recommend it :)
@Helen I remember to have some fun in there as well, though hopefully some of the goals will be fun too!
@Tanya Thanks. Good luck with the goals you mentioned on your blog too :)
@Jill Thanks. I don't think I realised how enormous the list was until after I had published it. Never mind, a challenge to undertake :) If I don't quite achieve all these I will carry them over into 2013 I think.