Yes, I’m talking to you.

You need a blog. Here’s why:

I know you’ve had “things” in your life that at one time felt so real and solid that you couldn’t imagine ever forgetting them. Events, ideas, even details of daily life were so much a part of you at one time. Now, weeks or years later, how many of these can you even recall at all?

This forgetting phenomenon seems to apply to details both big and small. You forget that great idea you had, that insight into a relationship, those lessons you learned from that really good book, that homeschool resource that you really meant to look into, and even those funny little toddler mispronunciations and cute childhood sayings.

We take those things for granted, and then, while our attention is turned elsewhere, they slowly slip, unnoticed, from our grasp.

Memories Are Vulnerable

This point was driven home to me, when I stumbled across some old notebooks from a few years back. I leafed through them, and couldn’t believe it. Until that moment I’d forgotten all those ideas and experiences I’d documented, but when I read over the notes, it all came back to me. It was a truly amazing and life-changing experience.

It was great to be able to read through and see where I was back then, the things I was thinking about, the problems the kids were having, the solutions I was going to try. These notes weren’t elaborate, by any means. Really, it was just a collection of lists and jottings. They were, however, enough to remind me of how things were, and of how far we had come.

It also reminded me that some things hadn’t changed much at all! I was amazed by how often I seemed to be (unknowingly) churning my wheels. I’d been meaning to get to a few goals for years, but kept getting distracted. I never realized how long I’d been procrastinating until I found these notes. Turns out that memories can play funny tricks with our sense of time!

All of these experiences impressed upon me how valuable memories are, and how vulnerable, too.

Since that time, I’ve tried to keep some records that I can refer to later. I’ve found that even as little as a few notes every few days can make a huge difference in how much I remember.

As you can imagine, though, I soon found myself surrounded by a hodgepodge of notebooks, binders, and other scraps, with no real way to organize or find anything that I needed. Finally, I realized that one great answer is (literally) right under our noses:

a blog.

Blogs Are Great Tools

No, not a public blog that everyone can see. I’m talking about setting up a private for-your-eyes-only blog (available for free from several different hosting services) where you can keep track of:

• What you did each day (or each week), educationally.
• Ideas you have.
• Lists of resources you want to track.
• Questions you need to research.
• Journaling
• Traveling details
• Work details

And really, much more. This is a literal web log of all the “stuff” that you need to keep tabs on, or don’t want to forget. Unlike a hodgepodge of papers, though, you can painlessly search your blog to find just what you want, when you want it.

You can assign tags to each entry, as you write it, so that you can easily pull it up later. Keep all your homeschool records under one label, and all your knitting ideas under another. Don’t forget to enter those priceless gems your kids come up with. (I can’t stand the thought that I might someday forget that for years my girls confused the words moth and wasp, referring to any random fluttering insect as a “mahsp”.)

Retrieve exactly what you want, when you are ready for it, and think of it as a working scrapbook of your ideas and experiences. Nostalgia is one good reason to keep a private blog, but it can do wonders for your personal productivity, too!

Where to Get Started

Now that you know blogs aren’t just for “bloggers”, (though personal blogs are invaluable tools for bloggers, too!), here are a couple of places where you can get your own free blog:

• Blogger
• Wordpress

Both of these sites are easy to set up, free, and allow you to restrict access to your blog so that only you (or people you invite) are allowed to see it.

As you can see, this is a topic with lots of possibilities, so I’ll be posting more information this week about how to set up and use your private blog. If you want to be sure to get the updates, use the link in the sidebar to the right to subscribe. (It’s free, of course!)

Image credit: scol22, stock.xchng

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