Documenting Your Own Life

Why Document Your Life?

We want to document those who have come before us, but we also want to leave information about our own lives for future generations, because nobody can tell our own story like we can. We have access to the information about ourselves that we spend so much time researching about our ancestors, and we can record these things ourselves so that somebody else won’t have to find that information later on.

I'm talking here about things that we intentionally choose to preserve for the future. Each of us has to decide for ourselves what that will be. There are many decisions that we can make about what we want to share with future generations, and what is important to us to save. We will want to preserve important facts about our lives, but we also have a great opportunity to choose ways to show what our lives are like, who we are as individuals, and who are the important people in our lives.

Recording Your Life Experiences

Below, I give resources to help in a few different scenarios. If none of these resources are what you are looking for, perhaps they can inspire you to come up with your own creative ideas. :)

1) I have no idea of what I even want to record about my life.

Maybe you could try some prompts for life stories to write. If you want to do an Internet search for prompts, some good search terms are "journal prompts," "autobiography prompts," or "personal history prompts."

If you want a big collection of prompts, you can try these: FamilySearch Blog - #52Stories Printables. You can answer all of them that apply to you, or just choose some that you like.

Three of my personal favorite approaches are:

to write down random memories that come to mind (things that I find that I don't want to forget),
to write about the events of my life that have shaped who I am (and that I feel represent my life story),
and to write about little moments and small details of my everyday life that are significant to me.

There are many other approaches to choosing what to record about your life; there are no wrong answers here.

2) Writing is hard for me; I want another way to document my life.

There are plenty of options for keeping your personal history that don't require as much writing. I'll just give a few suggestions. You can also use some of these suggestions in addition to keeping a written record of your life; you don't need to only choose one approach.

Photographs. If you are wanting to use photographs to preserve your life story, or parts of your life story, it will be important to have the photographs organized, and to have a way to keep track of why the photo is important to you. You will want to make sure you record who or what is in the photo, and other important information such as where and when it was taken. If you don't want to forget a detail about the photograph, or want to make sure other people know that detail, find a way to record it. I sometimes like to include a photograph in my journal entries, which gives me a chance to document why I took the photo and what its significance is.

Here are a few resources that may help you choose an approach:

This person gives a simple and practical solution for organizing digital photos. It may not be enough for preserving the stories behind the most important photos (you may wish to choose important photos for doing more with), but it can help with managing a large collection: PCMag - 3 Easy Ways to Organize Your Digital Photos.
This person helps to break down the process of going through a large collection of physical photographs, including a few different approaches to organizing them: The Family Photo Keeper - How To Organize Printed Photos: The Ultimate Guide.
If you are interested in starting a scrapbook, here is an article giving some simple and manageable steps, that will walk you through a few of the decisions you will need to make: Craftsy - Scrapbooking Ideas for Beginners: 5 Tips for Getting Started.

Video or audio. If you want to talk instead of write, you could try recording yourself. Choose whether you want to do a video or if you want to just record audio, and decide what sort of project you want to make. Do you want to record yourself regularly, as a way of keeping a journal? Do you want to tell stories from your life? Do you want to document life events? Do you want to talk about your thoughts on different topics? Many things you would ordinarily write could be adapted to recording. You can keep things simple and record yourself on a smartphone, or you can use a more specialized set-up. It's up to you.

Drawing or painting. This can be on paper, or it can be digital. The idea is to capture moments and experiences through your artwork instead of, or in addition to, using words. This can be anything from a drawing of the highlight of your day, to a sketch of an everyday object that caught your eye, to an exercise in noticing what is happening in nature around you.

3) I want to try writing a journal.

There are many approaches to journaling. You can keep it simple and record your experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Or you can choose a theme for your journal. You can combine different approaches to make your own personalized approach. You can even keep more than one journal, if you want to record more than one thing and want to keep them separate. Here are a few options for journals with a theme:

Gratitude journal. Here are some good guideline for deciding what you want your gratitude journal to be like: Cleveland Clinic - 4 Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal.

Travel journal. This person shares how he keeps a travel journal, and its significance to him: The Outbound - Why I Keep a Travel Journal and You Should Too.

Scripture study journal. This article on scripture study gives some good insights into the purpose of a scripture journal, and how it can help with learning spiritual things more deeply: MissionaryMall - Scripture Study Hacks. The part about a scripture journal is in point 3 in the list.

Do you want more ideas? This blog post gives 11 suggestions for types of journals to try: FamilySearch Blog - 11 Types of Journals for Capturing Your Life. This list offers many different ways to preserve a record of the challenges and joys of our lives.

4) Creative projects are important in showing who I am.

When we were teenagers, my brother Jordan got into 3D modeling and animating on the computer. I often watched him working on projects. After he died as a young adult, and after we started going through his computer files, it turned out that he had left behind a large collection of his models (most of them unfinished). As I have recently played around a bit with making models myself (with a much newer version of the software Jordan used to use), it has been really special to look at some of Jordan's old files to see a bit of his perspective on life. It's like watching him work on these projects all over again. And it gives such a fun snapshot at what his interests were when he made the models. I am grateful that he chose a way to express his creativity that allowed him to leave something valuable behind, and that he saved things that let me see his creative process and not only the finished projects.

There are so many ways we can express our creativity, including many that we might not initially think of as creative. Claudine Bigelow said, "I would like to take a broad view of creativity here. What kinds of creativity are you best at? Are you a maker, a thinker, an innovator, or a problem solver? Does your creativity shine most with your hands, your mind, or your heart?" (BYU Speeches - Creativity: Our Divine Heritage)

What do you create that could let you share your personality, your problem solving, your sense of humor, your ideas? How can you preserve a glimpse of your creative process for others to see? You don't have to save everything, but choosing some things you make that you would like to document and preserve can be a very special way to share yourself with others.

5) I want to use my keepsakes to tell about my life.

Our keepsakes (whether the physical objects, or photographs of them) can bring back a lot of memories. Make sure to find a way to save the stories behind the keepsakes! Here is an article that gives suggestions about deciding what to keep, as well as digitizing, storing, and displaying your keepsakes: Picture This Organized - What to Do with That Box of Memorabilia Sitting in Your Closet.

Keeping a Spiritual Record

Whatever your approach to keeping a personal record, remember to record things that are of spiritual worth. Henry B. Eyring shared his experiences with keeping a record for his family of the ways he saw God's influence in his family's day. He said, "More than gratitude began to grow in my heart. Testimony grew. I became ever more certain that our Heavenly Father hears and answers prayers. I felt more gratitude for the softening and refining that come because of the Atonement of the Savior Jesus Christ. And I grew more confident that the Holy Ghost can bring all things to our remembrance—even things we did not notice or pay attention to when they happened." The journal he kept was a blessing to his children, as well.

President Eyring explained, "My point is to urge you to find ways to recognize and remember God’s kindness." We may each find a different way of doing so, but we can all be blessed by following President Eyring's counsel.

("O Remember, Remember," by President Henry B. Eyring, October 2007 General Conference.)

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse