What I've learned | Project Life edition

This year I embarked upon Project Life for the first time, beginning way back in January at the very start of the year. To say I was excited about this project is an understatement. 

I was looking forward to the prospect of being able to tell the little details about my day-to-day life in a simpler and quicker way than dedicating a whole scrapbook page to each individual thing. Making a 12x12 layout about what I ate for dinner on a particular day just seemed a bit silly. But that sort of thing would be perfect for Project Life!

I was looking forward to making more of an effort to record those little moments that, up until then, had gone uncaptured and undocumented.

I was looking forward to having an album to look back on that would remind me of places I'd been and conversations I'd had that I would probably forget in a couple of years time.

In short, I was looking forward to documenting life in 2012.

The reality of putting it together proved to be somewhat more complicated than I anticipated, however. I always seemed to be behind and it felt like it took me at least half an hour to fill each pocket, deliberating over the vast amount of products in my stash and whether to type of handwrite my journaling, and what size I should print each photo at.  It felt like I was taking photos during my week just so I'd have enough photos and stories to fill the pockets. It felt like a chore. My excitement for the project soon dwindled.

The result: two months of completed double-page spreads, one month with the journaling missing, one month with 75% of the pockets filled and one month with 50% of the pockets missing.

Now I don't know what to do with what I've got. It looks ridiculous sitting in a whole big 12x12 album. But looking through the pockets, I can't bear to throw them away. The photos and words that I've recorded still mean something to me and tell me a lot about my life throughout those 5 months that I managed to do a half-hearted job with the project. The jury is still out on what I'll do. Perhaps I'll transfer the pages into my regular scrapbook album. We'll see.

But on to what I've learned about myself and Project Life throughout this process:

* I don't have a whole lot of time do dedicate to the project on a regular basis, mainly because of my job. Any work I do on it needs to be at the weekend ideally, and only take about an hour to do a whole week.

* My day-to-day life is very repetitive: get up, shower, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, have dinner, do more work, go to bed. That's about it in the week with maybe having dinner at a friend's house one evening. The weekends aren't that varied either, since I'm always so tired from work!

* The thought of having to fill a 12x12 spread for a month, let alone a week, scares the living daylights out of me. It just seems like too big of a job and that I will never have enough photos and stories to tell.

* That said, I also know I need to make more of an effort to take more photos of my daily life and to keep little bits of ephemera and evidence to use. I need to be more clever about what photos I take and what sort of things I document...I need to change things up from week to week so that I'm not just showing the same things week in, week out.

* I still love the whole concept of pockets to capture bits and pieces in.

* I'd love to be able to do this project on a smaller scale.

* I don't want to approach each pocket like a mini scrapbook layout. What I've got for this year is far too busy for my liking. I want it to be much more simple, along the lines of a journaling card, a piece of washi tape and maybe an embellishment. Or a small piece of patterned paper with some Thickers spelling out a word or two. Or just a plain photo in a pocket all by itself. Super quick simple is what I want.

* I still want it to look nice and like some thought has gone into the implementation of it, however.

* I don't want to limit each week to page or a spread. I want separate monthly sections but for the pages within that section to roll into each other. In other words, I want to add things to pockets as and when I have them, without having to worry about finishing the whole spread for the week before.

With all this in mind, I've come up with a bit of a plan for my new Project Life adventure. One I'm really excited with. But also one that I think is totally do-able for me and that won't let that excitement disappear.

Check back here tomorrow to see my grand plan...I'm so excited to share it with you!