From using an app on my phone, to scrapbooking and journaling, these three techniques have made documenting my daily life a total breeze.
I’ve always been one for documenting everything. Sitting on the cusp of Gemini and Cancer, I steal a lot of my sentimental traits from Cancer whilst utilising my desire to communicate as a Gemini to note it all down. And I think that the fact that I’ve been bought two five year diaries, one from my university housemates and one from my family, goes someway in proving that I really do like to jot down my memories so that they are there to look back on in years to come.
Last year, however, I upped my game and set myself a challenge to document more than I ever had before.
So, if like me, you like to capture your memories forever in one form or another but you’re just not sure where to start, this post will hopefully help you out!
Here are the three simple ways that I document my daily life each year:
Using the One Second Everyday app:
I’m notoriously forgetful but after a few tough years I wanted to challenge myself to not only document the big moments in life, but to record the special moments that take place in my daily life too. And I did exactly that last year. On January 1st 2019 I downloaded the One Second Everyday app and, knowing myself all too well, I set up the three daily reminders that I was certain I was going to rely on to remind me to use the app throughout the year.
In short, it does what it says on the tin. You use the app to record a one second video everyday and it then merges it all into one video that shows a snapshot of your entire year.
It turns out, I became so engrossed in the app that I didn’t end up needing the daily reminders after a few weeks of recording every day and I didn't forget a single day so come 31st December 2019, I had a video that showed me my entire year in one clip.
Perhaps my newfound favourite way of documenting my memories, this app reminded me that the smaller moments are often the ones we end up looking back on most fondly; the moments spent laughing with friends, the evenings spent cuddled up with Pip my house rabbit, and the weekly dinner nights with my family, to name but a few.
Using a one line a day five year diary:
Keeping a diary is something that I have tried, and failed, to do many times throughout my life. There’s nothing that I love more than picking up a pen and paper to jot down my thoughts. However, trying to keep up with it regularly, teamed with the pressure I put on myself for the writing to sound as good as I want it to, whilst still being real, has often led to me putting my diary to one side one evening and not picking it up again.
But then I was given a One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book
And suddenly writing up a little recap of my day didn’t seem so daunting, as all I had to do was muster up one simple line. Unlike a normal diary, this one also makes me so excited as I love the idea that in five years time I will have pages and pages of diary entries that show me exactly what I was up to on that day each year.
Using your printed photos to create a scrapbook:
I’ve always loved taking photographs and when I was younger I loved little more than trawling through my family’s many photo albums.
As I’ve got older that love for having photos printed has not changed and each month I take full advantage of my FreePrints app to have more delivered. But I found myself unsure on what to do with the photos and so I began searching for ideas on how to display them. And I came across scrapbooking. So now each month when my photos arrive I dedicate an evening to sticking them into my scrapbook
Now, I've got a growing collection of scrapbooks which document my favourite moments from across the years and each one acts as a wonderful keepsake for me to look back upon whenever I want to.
So there you have it, those are the three simple ways that I document my daily life...
From using my One Second App to capture a snippet of my daily life, to using my five year diary to jot down a little bit more information, to using my scrapbook to store the more special moments, they are three easy ways to make sure that I am documenting more throughout the years.
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