Project Life Update

Yep, those are photos from our May trip to Yellowstone. I bet you thought I completely gave up on Project Life. For awhile, so did I. But last week I dove in again and realized that the method that works for me doesn’t even come close to the what I see the Design Team members doing. They keep up with it weekly. I don’t – because that’s not working for me.

To pick it up again, I had to embrace the cold hard fact: Project Life is not high on my priority list. It’s a side thing I love to do. So there may be weeks (or months) that go by where I don’t touch it. And now I can see that’s exactly what does work for me.

 The secret ingredient: the Field Journaling approach.

Documenting is a high priority for me. That’s what I keep up with on a daily basis. And that’s what makes it possible to put Project Life on the back burner for a long time. When I have time, I’ll pull out my field notes and my personal journal and open up photo files and there it all is – the raw materials to pick it up again without missing a beat.

Just as researchers take field notes, and then later write them up more fully in their field journal, I document everything. Personal thoughts go into my personal journal – as well as the everyday things. During the busyness of the day, I take field notes. Jotting down little things that happen, things I observe, a quote from something someone said – to my nature observations when I head outside.

All of it goes in.

I’m always scribbling down something. The more I do this, the more easily I identify the stories I want to tell. Learning to keep these notes was a process unto itself – a habit that I needed to develop. People sometimes look at me strangely while I scribble down this or that, but you do get used to it and ignore them.

The end results of all of it bring me deeply satisfying joy. Follow the joy – it will lead you well.

Print PDF