I knew it would happen sometime. The moment when the memories keep happening, but I just can't catch up on Project Life, or even come close to catching up.
I slowly gave up on this awesome project right before Grayson's first birthday because I kept falling behind and felt so overwhelmed when trying to catch up that it pretty much stopped being fun for me.
Bummer, right?
Thankfully, I decided to try again January 1st of this year. I missed being creative and I certainly missed recording our memories the way I preferred-paper & glue style.
For weeks I kept up. My printer's ink was always full, the photo paper try was always stocked. Every night I uploaded the day's photos from my iPhone and/or Canon. I jotted every capture/note/story down in my cheapo notebook. On Sunday, I would print all the photos from that week out and cut them and by day's end Monday I would be done or nearly done with the entire spread!
Then, I ran out of ink. And steam. And time.
But, knowing I wanted to keep going and had to keep going (I always love catching Grayson with our albums. He loves looking at all the photos!) I decided my problem wasn't that I was out of ink or time thus ending my memory-keeping. My problem was that I just needed to plan better.
Even if it could only be a couple minutes a day or even every other day, it was something. And even if I didn't get more ink for 2 or 3 weeks and couldn't print my photos as quickly as I liked, I could be planning my pages. And writing down the dates and sketching a general idea of what had happened that week.
I've had fellow Project Lifer's ask me how I keep up (or don't! ;)) and what I use to help me. I've been doing this for months now and it's honestly the only thing working for me and keeping me motivated to continue.
I do a quick sketch of the design I feel like using (most often times it's Design A) a few weeks in a row. I place the week number and the date span above the sketch.
Under the sketch I keep lots of space to write what I remember or if I have time, what happened that day. Usually, I upload my photos once a week to my computer, sometimes twice, but never more. I use iPhoto so I always group each week's photos in a file with the week number.
It could be a week or two (sometimes longer) before I get back to that week's sketch to fill in each spot for where I want a photo, card, etc. to go. But somehow it gets done. :)
Then, there are times I may have a couple uninterrupted minutes to whip out my current album, flip to an unfinished week and begin placing cards where I want them. No photos. I just go off of my notebook sketch as best I can and fill as I go.
There have been times when I'm adding my photos in where a card gets moved or something, but very rarely.
I have to remind myself this is really supposed to be a simple system. I need simple. Life is too hectic around here to think much, so the less I have to do...the better! Ha! ;)
I remember posting Project Life Tuesdays on here or Instagram. Now, I'm completely okay without the pressure I put on myself to hurry. Because for me-if I hurry, I get grumpy and it all becomes very un-fun.
If you're working on Project Life, tell me how you're coming along! I'd love to hear what you do to stay caught up or if you're like me, what you do to just keep going!
Thanks for stopping by!
Here's to a great rest of the week!
