Dan Curtis ~ Professional Personal Historian

The New Year is hours away and many people are busy making resolutions. I’ve never been much of a resolution maker. But I do believe that it’s helpful to set some objectives and to work toward achieving them.

If you’ve been wanting to get your life story written, then why not make it happen in 2009! Here’s one of the best approaches I’ve found for tackling big projects. I learned it from David Allen’s fantastic book, Getting Things Done . If you haven’t read it, I strongly urge you to pick up a copy. I won’t go into the whole system Allen has developed but you can get a summary of it here. He rightly points out that when we are faced with something huge to do we become overwhelmed and either avoid work on it or start and stop in an erratic and demoralized fashion.

For most of us, writing our life story can seem a daunting task. Where to begin? What Allen suggests, is that you break down a project into small manageable tasks called actions. You know – it’s like the old joke, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time! ” Yuk! Yuk!

But seriously folks….here’s what I’d suggest. Begin by making a list of tasks you need to do to get your book launched. Start with the first thing you need to do followed by the next logical step or action. For example, a possible list of your Next Actions could look like this:

• Research and find several book titles about writing a life story.
• Go to the local library or bookstore.
• Select at least two books on writing a life story.
• Read two chapters of Book One every day until completed.
• Read Book Two committing to two chapters a day until completed.
• Purchase a 7 x 10 lined notebook in which to write draft.
• Determine a time and place to do writing.
• Begin writing by answering the following, “What are my earliest childhood memories?”

I’m not saying that this is what your list should look like. You may have a quite different set of actions and that’s just fine. The important point is to keep each of your steps simple and in a logical order. If you find that one of your Next Actions contains several steps, then break it down again until you have a series of simple manageable actions. Warning: don’t try to organize your whole book writing project from beginning to end in one sitting. You’ll be overwhelmed. I’d recommend that you stop your planning when you get to the point where you’re uncertain what Next Action you should take. Once you work through your Next Actions list it will become clearer what you need to do next.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

Photo by Dan Foy