Starting 2016 with a New Attitude

Finally, after 2 weeks of being sick, and being sick while on dialysis, I am turning a corner.  It is amazing how much that can sap your mental energy.

Thomas MacEntee of GeneaBloggers has a program called "Genealogy Do-Over".  While I am not going to start over, I am finding inspiration in his January post, particularly because I tend to do the "ooh bright and shiny" approach to research, which ends up being haphazard and incomplete:

It may sound odd for many of us to do “prep work” before researching. However, I found that if I took time to prepare my workspace and my mind for research, I had much better results. 

For me, this means I will no longer research at 2:00 am if I am tired or half-asleep. It also means that I will no longer say to myself, “Oh I have 15 minutes before the roast in the oven is done, I’ll look for Grandpa some more.” One of my biggest problems in the past was not starting or finishing the research process properly. Moreover, the finish turned out to be just as important for me: with a good ending to a research session, I would know exactly where to pick up the next time I started. 

So over the next month, think about how you have researched in the past in terms of time, location, tools used, etc. Consider making some changes. Write down some research “warm up” exercises and try them once we get to the research phase. Make a list of items that you must have available when you are researching (a copy of Evidence Explained, a spiral notebook, your copy of Evernote open on screen, etc.).

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