Week In The Life | Thoughts On The Process & Daily Sheet PDF

Next week I'll be documenting a week in our lives.

Seven days of photos and words, chronicling the little things and the big things that happen from Monday through Sunday.

There's so many different ways to approach this project. There's no right or wrong. 

  • Maybe you'll follow along with me and focus on the theme of time this year. Check out my design plan and supply list here.
  • Maybe for you this project will be an attempt to catch just one story per day with words or photos.
  • Maybe for you this project will be all on your blog and you won't be creating an album.
  • Maybe you'll go all-out and jot down things as they happen on an hourly basis (even doing this for one day during the week is really cool).

If this is your first time participating in this project I highly recommend you read this post: The Basics Of Documenting A Week In Your Life. I've also got completed examples from a couple years available here: 2008 and 2010.

For me this project is about capturing the rhythms of our days over a period of one week. What time are we waking? What time are we falling into bed? What's special about our family right now? How can I pay close attention to (and honor and celebrate) the things that are happening now which likely won't be the same next year?

This project is simply an opportunity to capture the real, the basic, the rush, the slowness, the crazy, the simple, the ups and the downs of a single week. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Next week my focus is ONLY on documenting. I won't be putting the album together at all. I'll be using my camera and writing things down and just letting the week evolve. The actual bringing it all together will happen the following week.

Week In The Life Schedule

Here's what's happening next week:

MONDAY | The week begins with a special Week In The Life giveaway from the 2011 sponsors. The comments on the giveaway will be open through Friday with the winners posted on the following Monday.

TUESDAY THROUH SUNDAY | Each day I'll share my photos and words for the day. At the bottom of each post I'll include a link widget for you to link to your own blog or site sharing your photos and words. Seeing others photos and reading their words are such a great way to get inspired and to think about other things you'd like to include in your own project.

WEEK OF AUGUST 1 | I'll be sharing my completed album.

Free Daily Sheets PDF To Help Document Your Week

As I was thinking about how I want to approach my content I remembered that when I first taught this class back in 2005 I included Daily Sheets for people to use to document pieces of their day. I created a new PDF that's geared towards what I'd like to include in my album and am making it available for you to download here.

The simple idea is to print out this PDF and keep it with you throughout the week for a very easy way to write things down. It's possible that not everything you write on here will make it into your album and it's also possible (and likely for me) that I'll be writing even more stories on the back on these sheets.

My hope is that this will give you a starting place.

The PDF includes 14 pages - 2 for each day of the week. The first page features time by hours (all 24 hours are listed) and the second page includes a spots for food (breakfast, lunch and dinner), observations, gratitude, favorite memory, and overheard.

Download the Week In The Life Daily Sheets here (3.1 MB).

I hope you're getting excited! Charge up those camera batteries -

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171 thoughts

  1. week in the life: the process « Pastiche says…
    08/22/2011

    [...] Documentation:  Spent the week taking photos and documenting thoughts and events. I used Ali’s PDF printouts and thought I would use my OhLife account, but turns out I quite liked scribbling things down [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  2. see you soon. | says…
    08/22/2011

    [...] you soon. getting ready for week in the life next week. (and hoping it provides a little more excitement than this last week.) Share this:Like [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  3. Documentary Project: Week in the Life 2011 « CraftArtsyMiracle says…
    09/22/2011

    [...] to know more about Ali and her work, check out her empowering blog and download her PDF worksheets HERE. She has tons of information and creative ideas to help make your documentary your [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  4. Project Life 2012 | Week One + Video Tutorial For Working With The 6×12 Layered Templates | Ali Edwards says…
    01/11/2012

    [...] planning sheets for Project Life. I don’t use any planning sheets but it did remind me of the Daily Sheets I made for Week In The Life last year and wanted to include that as a link today as something fun [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  5. Annette Green says…
    04/18/2012

    I'm definitely getting super excited. I have never participated before, in fear I have to admit. But I am ready and looking forward to it. Can't wait to get started.

    Reply 0 Replies
  6. Week In the Life 2012: Day 1 | Amy Kingsford says…
    04/24/2012

    [...] using these Daily Planning Sheets (provided on Ali Edwards blog) to help me record the stories and reflections behind each of my [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  7. Week In the Life: Monday says…
    04/24/2012

    [...] 2. The writing can be short and to the point. I would like to consider this more as the days go on. I wrote a lot today which took quite a chunk of time in the evening. I want to capture a daily look from hour to hour. I also want to focus on the Observations, Gratitude, Overheard, and Favorite Moments from Ali Edwards Daily Sheets. [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  8. simply autumn » Week in the Life 2012 :: Monday, 4/23 says…
    04/24/2012

    [...] am using a combination of Ali’s Daily Sheets and Evernote (an iPhone app) to record notes for the day.  I will probably not post the details of [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  9. Week in the Life 2012 – design plan and Monday « triggsey says…
    04/24/2012

    [...] addition to the photos, I’m keeping notes on the day using note sheets that Ali devised and I’ll probably add them in as is when I put the book [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  10. Week in the Life 2012 | Inspired Life with Jess says…
    09/11/2012

    [...] different colours and the days of the week. The journalling pages are double sided, and I used the daily sheets that Ali [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  11. A Day In The Life | Documenting Today | Ali Edwards says…
    01/29/2013

    [...] (it will be available at Designer Digitals on Thursday) that I’m going to pair that with the Daily Sheets (no need to re-write or type all that content over [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  12. Project Life 2012 | Week Six | Ali Edwards says…
    01/29/2013

    [...] added a card from Elle’s Studio Collected Notes Tag set on top of my Daily Sheet to give it a small [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  13. Join In | A Day In The Life + Dates For 2012 Week In The Life | Ali Edwards says…
    01/29/2013

    [...] simplify the process you can download my set of my printable Daily Sheets and use whichever day you plan to [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  14. Erika Hayes says…
    01/30/2013

    Have you heard of OHLife? it is an online PRIVATE journal that emails you everyday to remind you to just jot down about the day.. AND you can attach a photo (ie PL- Photo for the day) I love that all I have to to is hit reply and journal from my phone computer anywhere I check my email.. and I NEVER forget to write something so EVEN if I don't get a photo DONE I know what to take a photo of to represent that day.. and no -- UH was that Wednesday or Thursday that I... here is the link if you want to look into it

    https://ohlife.com/

    Reply 0 Replies
  15. Day In The Life | 2013 Monthly Project | Ali Edwards says…
    01/31/2013

    [...] be documenting my day on Thursday, January 31 using a Daily Sheet for documentation. You can download a free set of Daily Sheets (originally designed for Week In The [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  16. How I Approach A Day in the Life » Table For Five says…
    02/24/2013

    [...] a notebook, sheet of paper, or something to take notes.  There is a great free download from Ali here.  I ended up just having a few sheets of paper and a pen sitting on the table all [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  17. Week In The Life 2012 | Supplies, Design & Plan | the krafty pig says…
    08/14/2013

    [...] will be using Ali’s Daily sheets which I printed out and will carry with me all week so that I can update them throughout the [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  18. Planning For Week In The Life 2013 | Ali Edwards says…
    08/30/2013

    [...] I’ll also be using the same set of Daily Pages to document my words for the seven days. You can download those for free here: Daily Pages. [...]

    Reply 0 Replies
  19. kerri says…
    09/02/2013

    Very excited as this is my first week in the life adventure! And it will be a cool week to document since it will be Irishfest weekend here in Pittsburgh, with some really cool bands from Ireland!

    Reply 0 Replies
  20. Liz F says…
    09/09/2013

    Im actually going to do this this year!

    Reply 0 Replies
  21. Kim says…
    09/12/2013

    Hi Ali, I am getting a "network" error when I try to download the daily sheets. Can you help me? I don't know why I am the only one with this problem..

    Reply 0 Replies
  22. Week in the Life | September 2013 | sarathings says…
    09/26/2013

    […] daily sheets will fill in the gaps and tell extra stories and all I’m planning to do on Saturday is add […]

    Reply 0 Replies
  23. A Project we love: "A Week in the Life" - Artifact Uprising says…
    10/21/2013

    […] collected words and photographs archiving the otherwise mundane, messy and amusing (and she used this resource as a […]

    Reply 0 Replies
  24. Tips and Ideas for Documenting a Week in the Life | Inspired Life with Jess says…
    10/25/2013

    […] out how you are going to document the week. I plan on using Ali’s daily sheets to record everything, as it’s quick and easy to do, and I’ll include extra details […]

    Reply 0 Replies
  25. Medicare Munber » Daily Thoughts Day says…
    10/31/2013

    […] Week In The Life | Thoughts On The Process & Daily Sheet PDF | Ali … Jul 20, 2011 … Week In The Life | Thoughts On The Process & Daily Sheet PDF. Next week I’ll be documenting a week in our lives. Seven days of photos and … […]

    Reply 0 Replies

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