My 2018 Memory Keeping Plans

I'm doing project life, monthly, in a 6x8 album. This works for me. I'm caught up. I'm still working on finishing December Daily, probably will take me to early February. I will be doing WITL, this is my favorite project of the year, and the albums the family goes back to over and over. I'm especially looking forward to it this year, as my boys are away at college, and life looks a,little different. I will probably do at least one DITL, maybe all 3, that I won't know for sure until we get closer. I am also doing layouts based on story kit themes, mostly 6x8, with an occasional 12x12 too. I love the 6x8 for one photo stories, with room for a little art or embellishments. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

This year I began an All About Me album for 2018 (although I'll probably delve into my past, too) in a 6 x 8 size. I am also attempting PL in the 12 x 12 format, again. I have only completed one year of PL and usually come to a screeching halt sometime over the summer. Hoping this won't happen this year. I am taking OLW (a 6 x 8 album). I finished my second DD in 2017 and riding on that high I will definitely document my December Daily in 2018. I haven't done a WITL for years but might try it this year in a small capacity. 30 Days of Thankful in November (probably a 4 x 4 format again). Two albums I completed in 2017 that I won't this year is 52 Gratitudes and 52 Weeks of Giving (both 4 x 6 format). Considering a monthly DITL, but we'll see. If you're interested in my past album projects or even current ones I'm at http://www.susanbowers.typepad.com/

This will be my 3rd year of OLW and it is my first attempt at PL in the weekly spread as you do. I'm looking forward to this "experiment".

All the love for your memory keeping plans. I also have a couple of projects I will be working on for 2018.

First of the PL album for my family and me. Here I am documenting our lives on a monthly basis using your new Stories by the Month Kit. Yay! I am doing this in 6x12 this is my third year using this format and I love it and it works perfectly for me.

I will also complete a 6x8 album for my baby-boy filled with photos and his stories about his first year (he will be turning 1 in april), afterwards I will be documenting his life in another 6x8 album.

I am also keeping one 6x8 album for myself. I want to document what I like, dislike, read, do and this album is all about me, apart from being a mom.

I will be doing one Day in the Life (probably in March, since I did a DITL two years ago in March as well and I bet it will be interesting to see how life has changed for me).

I am also doing OLW (my OLW word is gentle) and for sure I will be participating in DD.

Looking at that list, it's quite a lot, but then again it doesn't feel like it. For the family PL, the babyalbum and the album about myself I will take a couple of hours at the beginning of each month to document the last one. The prompt for OLW I will be tackling throughout the month and DITL and DD are one-time projects, so I think it is managable. And I love looking back at all the memories I recorded in the last couple of year.

Thanks Ali for being an inspiration and for designing intentional memory keeping products that help tell my stories.

This year I'm planning to stay with my 12x12 albums for regular layouts for my longer stories, but I'm using a regular size Midori for everyday stories (usually one cropped photo or a little ephemera). I've dabbled in it recently and it seems to be a good fit for the little bits and pieces of life. Ali's Story stamps are a great size for this by the way :-) One Little Word is where my heart is inspired to live and create, so that's a given. I'm planning to do one Day in the Life and one Week in the LIfe along with you guys. And December Daily is simply a part of Christmas for me. Oh how I love that project. And I'm sure I'll make a few mini albums along the way...just because. Looking forward to another year with ALL of you. Sharon

I'm going to try incorporating an art journal process into my memory keeping. Definitely something just for me, but I do plan to incorporate photos and travel and whatever I am experiencing at the time. With my daughters away in college, I don't find I do as much "regular" documenting, so I'm going to focus on meaningful ways to do that as I learn to be an empty-nester. I think the story kits and story stamps will go wonderfully (as always) with whatever process I end up with.

I am hoping to use Jess Forster's tell 52 stories idea. I have been hording my monthly kit subscriptions for ages and I am going TO USE THEM THIS YEAR!!!!! I bought one of your Griege 6x8 albums for each of my daughters and I plan to tell stories for each of them in there...and I have wanted to try out a TN so I might tell some family stories in there. I am excited. Some will be short and some will be long but I will write them down :)

My very first year here . . . I completed my December Daily and feel in love with this Ali Edward’s style and community. I will do my memory keeping in: OLW and a 6 X 8 album. My 6 X 8 will incorporate DITL and WITL, along with certain monthly memories. I have subscribed to both the Story Kit and Story of the Month Kit. I am a widow, teach First Grade, and have a wonderful son, daughter in law, and precious 8-year-old granddaughter. I am so excited to have such a documented year!

In 2017, I used one 12x12 album for all the DITLs, WITL and Dec Daily. At first I thought it would be a bit boring, but each project has its own personality and I really loved having all of them together in one album. I used the same color cardstock (teal blue) for DITL and WITL, with Dec Daily having a vibrant red cardstock. Having them in one album led to a cohesion I found very satisfying. :-) I will be doing that again this year, with OLW in a separate, mixed-media-type, handmade journal.

I realized yesterday that I made it a lot farther in OLW last hear than I thought I had, to mid-summer, before it fell by the wayside in the pressures of work and family stresses. I am now encouraged to try OLW again this year, though I haven’t decided whether to reuse last year’s class since I didn’t finish it (never even visited the classroom once I got off track!) or buy the new class. I also want to document more regularly instead of just specials that stick out, and I subbed to the new kit for that. I am going to use my Story kits rather than collect them, if I can get myself going!

Such a great post... Thanks Ali! Great motivator to clarify my plan for 2018. So here goes!

- Weekly PL (OK, sometimes monthly - I just go with it) using Story Kit & Stories by the Month supplies in a 12x12. Love this method for documenting family stories.
- WITL & 1-3 DITL's in the back of that same 12x12 to document MY story.
- One Little Word in a skinny 6x8.
- I work in retail so December Daily will (unfortunately) never happen. LOL!

I have really struggled with having too many binders, so one change for me this year will be just putting WITL & DITL into my Weekly PL 12x12 binder. I have also struggled managing all the 'stuff' and am really looking forward to keeping it simple this year by using only AE subs & kits.

Thanks again for prompting me to set intentions for my memory keeping in 2018!

This year I’ve chosen to simplify. That’s my one little word this year.

Ali,

Do you have any plans to create a wedding album? I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve been married 20+ years and still haven’t finished my wedding album.

Really interesting to set out a plan for the year. I do it professionally and in some areas of my life, but have less concrete goals historically in this area. Generically, I plan to:
-Create 1 12x12 layout per month per kid (so 3 per month) - often averages out to more, but this is the minimum objective.
-Participate in WITL - some years it is purely on my blog sometimes in paper. Plan is for an actual album this year.
- Complete 12x12 two page PL layouts for as many weeks as serve me. I usually do about 3-4 months a year and call it good. Some years more or less, but find I'm OK with getting a slice of weekly documenting and oddly don't "need" to complete the year to feel good about this aspect of my documentation
- December Daily - always- it is a core of our family's experience of December.

You know the phrase what gets measured gets done? I think that will help here. I've added a column in the "month" view of my Get to Work Book to note the number of PL spreads, Layouts, and days of Yoga to track each. I just add a hash mark as I complete them. My OLW is gratitude so I'm adding 5 things I'm grateful for in each day of the monthly view. Trying to update each as I do them or in the morning so there is a visual accountability or tallying of achievements! Sounds like maybe a lot, but in the bright light of January it is nice to have a plan and a structure to support the plan.

This year my word is action. I needed a word to make me move. A loud word. Right now I'm purging my scrap space. Thank goodness for Totally Tiffany. Trying to get rid of stuff. I'm working on finishing my December Daily. My current plans for 2018:

OLW: Love this project. I have been doing this for 6 years. I use your albums and supplies I don't always get everything done but I add random things and pictures into them. I kind of document me.
PL: I have been doing this project since Becky Higgins started this in 2009 at creating keepsakes. I do weekly. 12X12 size albums. One album per year. Last year I did 9x12. It was okay. I'm going back to 12x12 this year.
WITL: I do this in a 6x8 album and your kit.
DITL: I do this in a 4x4 and just 1 time. Even though I get all your kits :)
December Daily: I do this with your 6x8 album and your fun supplies!
I have 3 boys 19,16 and 11. I love pictures of our everyday. As Heidi Swapp says this is evidence of our lives. I'm a documentarian. I know that is not a word, but its who I am. I thank you Ali for all your inspiration. You freaking ROCK!!!!!!!!!

Hello Ali!
I think it's really important to all of us to remember that this is not only your hobby - like for most of us - but your work. So - lucky you!! - you are investing a lot more time into it than for example I can due to my job.

My plans for 2018:
My second year of documenting my life in a PL style and in 9x12. This worked quite well for me and was a lot of fun. Though I am still missing October till December '17.

I'm taking part in OLW for the 2nd time.

For the first time, I'll do a WITL. Bought one of the past kits on sale, that's how I finally decided to give it a go. I'm curious how it will go for single me...

I'll do DITL at least once. Depending on the kits as I like the "per hour" way most. It allows me to compare my different DITLs.

December Daily of course.

Then I did a 6x8 album for my family in 2016 and wanted to do another in 2017 but somehow I never succeeded though most of the photos are printed. I hope to catch up and to do one for 2018, too.... we'll see.

Same goes for 6x8 albums of my vacations. These I love most, but hardly ever get them done due to the amount of photos. I really hope to have time to work on some this year.

Looking at all these plans, I need to quit my job xD

Take care,
Sandra

I'm being super intentional about using Sundays to 'create' in 2018. I'm embarrassed to say that I have all of your Story Kits in a bin and I haven't used a single one - never 'making' the time to tell those extra stories outside of my PL albums, WITL & DD too. So this year, I'm going to hustle on Saturdays to get more errands & chores done so that Sundays are for creating. I'm using my lunches at work to watch your SK class videos and brainstorming my layout ideas and the past 2 Sunday's I've actually worked on them! I just started with For The Love and will work forward & backward as I try to catch up.

I do a 12 x 12 PL album (or 2), but not 1 week per spread, rather monthly.
I did WITL last year and I'm excited to do it again this year. Loved that project.
I also did a DD album this year for the first time and I thought I'd just do "December Stories" and not worry about the number of days, but ended up having a story and layout of some kind for each day. Surprise! So I will be doing DD again this year. (I appreciate that album so much and I think it was because I took the Product Play class. So many inspirations in that class and even though I didn't do every one of them or use all of the foundations that I made I loved how it was a great reference for creativity.)
I'm also going to attempt 6x8 albums for both my daughters with 1 story a month using whatever story theme is available that month.
Oh and I'm doing OLW again.
I didn't think I was doing too much this year, but phew! when you write it all out it seems like a lot! I guess everyone has to have a hobby ;)

Love hearing all of this❤️. I too, am finishing up 2017 PL (after deciding in November, HA! to print pics for the year, and do kind of a Monthly format). For 2018, I will most likely do a monthly format. That seems to be really speaking to me right now. I would like to try 9x12 for this, but am working through a lot of 12x12 product I already own. 😜
And like you, I'm especially loving letting the Story Kit & Stamp encourage & inspire what stories I tell in other pages I make. Some in 6x8, some 12x12. As well, I will probably do DITL, & WITL with you, as I have for several years now. Love to see the changes over time!
And I'm actively doing OLW this year, and so far loving it❤️!
I'm excited to see what I make & what stories get told this year, especially after the awe inspiring weekend of Story Camp!! ❤️Still have such a full, full heart from that weekend!!:) 😘 Especially excited to work on my 'Me' album we started❤️

Thanks for sharing your plan. I'm trying chat books printed from my instagram account (a separate family account) for everyday life. Project Life just hasn't seemed to work for me the last three years, so I thought I would try a different approach. I want to create more traditional layouts - it's still my favorite and I miss doing those. Love DD and WITL and DITL - those are always my favorite projects. Thank you for your continued inspiration. I did a blog post once on 'Thursdays with Ali,' I think it was the yesterday/today class and how Thursday was my favorite day of the week because I loved, loved, loved your class. Still do! Happy 2018 to you and yours.