March 31, 2019

#the100dayproject – Vera Documents Life!

verabear Project Life, The 100 Day Project #100daysofmemorykeeping, #memorykeeping, #projectlife, #the100dayproject, #veradocumentslife 0 Comments

For the third year in a row, I am signed up for The 100 Day Project. Check out the link to find out more, I hope you decide to join in or follow along.

Beginning April 2, I shall be embarking on a journey of a hundred days of memory keeping.

Memory what? Memory Keeping!

Are you familiar with Timehop? Or the Memories app on Facebook? It shows you something from your feed from the same day of each year in the past, for as far back as when you joined Facebook. It could be one of your own posts, or one you were tagged in. Honestly, love that feature!

It’s an automated way of showing us what we were doing, thinking, or even found interesting in the past. We have no control over what shows up though; sometimes even stuff we didn’t mean to memorialize just come up. Truly, it digs up stuff we forgot we ever posted about.

Still, it’s a pretty nifty app, don’t you think? There are times when it shows a past aspiration, a dream project, or even just something I said wanted to do or a place I wanted to visit. Sometimes that reminder is enough to push me into action (in case I didn’t take action before). Sometimes it’s a strong reminder of what I had already forgotten.

What if the app is discontinued? What if Facebook shuts down or you lose access to your account?

I have just been notified of my 10 years on Facebook. If I get locked out of my account, how will I get back those 10 years’ worth of posts, albums, memories?

Memory Keeping is anything you do to document your current life or past experiences, so it can later on be reviewed and/or enjoyed. It could be your way of telling your story and making your mark. It can be a piece of family history that gets passed on from generation to generation.

Many of us treat our social media feeds as the sole avenue for memory keeping. We setup albums of our most memorable occasions and experiences. When we’ve reached milestones, we mark the occasion by posting about it.

That’s all good, but if it’s the only way we preserve our memories, what happens when those sites go away? Have we learned anything from the demise of Multiply and Friendster? Is there another way we’re documenting our lives?

We take loads of photos everyday but apart from uploading to social media, most of the time those photos are just left sitting in your phone albums, or on computed hard drives. Who sees them? Don’t wait for first-hand experience when technology fails. I have lost plenty of photos due to computers crashing or hard drives failing. Sayang naman those photos.

This project is my way of preserving those memories and turning them into something tangible that we can enjoy now, and for years and years to come.

Project Goals

For many years I told myself I will be printing my photos and creating Project Life albums to record our life. I’ve amassed a lot of supplies and spent a lot of money towards this intention. So far though, I have one photobook for a day tour of a local museum, another one documenting my first ever 5k run with my girlfriends, and a 30 Days of Thankful album. I’ve got a few weeks’ documented for 2015, maybe 2 or 3 spreads from other years.

Here are some of my Memory Keeping goals:

Make a photobook of our Bangkok 2017 trip.
Make a photobook of our Taiwan 2018 trip.
Do a 2018 Yearbook.
Start and get caught up on our 2019 Yearbook.
Do something with our Wedding photos
Make a photobook of our Palawan 2018 trip, or include pages of it in our 2018 yearbook.
Track older photos and figure out a central storage (could be cloud-based) that will allow me to easily get them into books and printed.

I have no illusions of completing ALL of this in 100 days, but if I do, wouldn’t that be ever so SPECTACULAR? My goals for these hundred days though, would be:

To get started!
To do SOMETHING Memory Keeping related each and every day
- Go through course/s in the BH CLassroom (I purchased the Photo Tips + Workflow class while it was on sale, but it’s still available on full price right now. Also thinking about getting the Yearbook class, on its final 20% off sale TODAY!)
- Select + edit photos
- Print photos
- Work on Journalling
- Put pages together
Use my existing supplies!
Share my progress.

#the100DayProject Inspiration

On Instagram, I follow the #the100dayproject to be inspired by others who are creating something every single day. When you do that it can be easy to feel intimidated about how beautiful others’ work can be, or how much progress they are making. Instead, I choose the inspiration that comes out of their accomplishments.

Here are some accounts or hashtags to checkout, and hopefully they move you to do your own #100dayproject:

#the100dayproject

Amanda of mooandboohandmade

Elise Joy (she’s so amazing, really a creativity/productivity peg!)

I’ll re-share others also on my Instagram in the coming days. 🙂

You can do any of the following to follow and support me as I document life: