Happy 2013 to everyone! While I rarely make New Year's resolutions, I've made a few genealogy resolutions that I hope will bring me renewed focus in 2013.
1. First and foremost: stop letting social media sites like Facebook and Twitter steal my time. While both are very helpful tools for locating new research resources, I find myself focused on posting links and comments instead. No one really cares what I have to say, and I'm not trying to establish myself as an "expert" in the field, so why not cut down on the number of people I follow on Twitter and visit once a day to scan for new resources.
2. Clean out my Gmail boxes and save important emails to Evernote. I wish Gmail had a "folders" option like Outlook (and yes, I know about tags). This is pretty easy to do while I'm watching television.
3. Go paperless. I know this is high on everyone's list. I have a ton of paper that still needs to be scanned and moved to Evernote or Dropbox. Take one folder at a time so as not to be overwhelmed.
4. Clean up my FTM tree.
5. Start a list of contacts (name, email, snail mail address, phone #) for each surname.
6. Pick a couple of lines to focus on, vs. my current "scattered" approach to research.
7. Tackle the boxes of photographs that need to be scanned and organized. This isn't really genealogy related, and might have to wait until 2014!
8. Stop trying to attend every webinar out there. Focus on the ones that will provide the most valuable information.
I have others in the back of my mind (learn more about DNA testing, become more involved with the local genealogy society, etc.), but my main focus for 2013 is to get organized. After ten+ years of researching my family history, I've gotten a little disorganized.
Happy researching!
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