3 Ways Family History Writers Fall into the Pit of Procrastination
If working toward a goal looks like walking along a path, procrastination is a pit that we fall into at the beginning of the path. New writing approaches and community can pull you out of the pit.
Procrastination is a tricky phenomena which family writers experience.
What makes it tricky is procrastination can look like “getting organized” or “caring what others think” or “making sure research is finished”. We promise ourselves we will start as soon as…..[fill in the blank]. There is always something or someone we feel like we need to handle before we can start our writing.
Let’s look at how procrastination throws family history writers into a pit.
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Pit of Procrastination
Procrastination is when we want to be working on a goal, but we just can’t get ourselves to start. If working toward a goal looks like walking along a path, procrastination is a pit that we fall into at the beginning of the path.
Genealogists have some very particular kinds of pits of procrastination they fall into.
What type of procrastination are you suffering from when it comes to writing your family’s history?
1. Files and Piles
You’ve been collecting family history for years or decades. You have photographs, documents, and recorded (but not transcribed) interviews with older relatives. Some things are digitized, some things are on paper. None of it is organized in a way anyone else could understand.
2. Systems and Daydreams
You dream of one day having the time to getting it all organized. You believe that if you were organized, the family history writing would occurred easily. You’ve bought software and started to use it, but got busy and stopped after a few hours. You’ve attended a dozen webinars on organizing your genealogy to inspire you. After each webinar, you change your system, leaving you stuck in the organizing phase.
3. Fear and Worry
You want to write but stop yourself because you are worried about what to say and how to say it. There are past events where you were embarrassed or shamed by others, and now you are afraid to share. One time you posted something on Facebook that made your aunt angry for months. On top of all this, you feel you are a terrible writer.
Sound familiar?
You might find yourself suffering from more than one type of procrastination above. Regardless of if it is one, two, or all three, every week that goes by is torture. You want to write and are still not starting, which leaves you feeling worse.
This is the pit of procrastination.
Getting out of the pit of procrastination
Two things work to climb out of the pit of procrastination:
Adopting a new approach
Writing with a community
The new approach to writing in our digital age is to write chronicles, rather than long, scholarly narratives. Chronicles capture moments in time in our ancestor’s lives, are short, and include an image. It’s easy to learn how to write a chronicle.
The second half of ending procrastination is writing with a community of other writers. The energy and enthusiasm is contagious and you’ll find yourself writing, rather than just thinking about writing. Each month a group of genealogists writes 10 chronicles in 10 days and you can join them.
It’s not just procrastination
Procrastination is just one of ten problems family history writers face when starting to write about their ancestors. The entire list includes:
Overwhelm
Disorganization
Procrastination
Fear of Criticism
Changing Focus
Privacy Concerns
Unsure of an Audience
Emotional Attachment
Lack of Technical Know-How
Waiting Until Finished Researching
If you read the list above and say “that’s me” over and over, you are not alone. You are part of the 98% of genealogists who want to write their family history and just haven’t started yet.
The best way to start is with the 10 Days of Chronicles Challenge. We start on the 1st and you can stop procrastinating right now, and join us.