Turning Over a New Leaf

By the time you read this—especially if you, like me, are not an early riser—you may have missed the debut of Ancestry.com's newest genealogy program added to their television lineup, A New Leaf. But that's okay: I will have missed it, as well. As touching as such programming is, I'd rather spend my time actually, you know, doing that genealogy research. I don't need help to feel good about myself as a family history fan.

Still, I do need to turn over a new leaf. I've amassed an entire library of genealogical programming I've been meaning to watch—but haven't. Last summer at Jamboree, for instance, I signed up for a year's subscription to Legacy Family Tree Webinars, including their thousand-plus archived online classes. Do you think I've gotten down to doing anything about that? I didn't even catch that Bloopers session, despite the enticement of the hilarity alongside a well-deserved celebration of their thousand-mark milestone. And despite the need to brush up on such topics as Blaine Bettinger's class on phasing, I haven't yet gotten busy on this learning to-do list.

The quandary with to-do lists is that each of us gets only twenty four hours in a day. We have to make choices as to how we use those hours. And, inevitably for those of us for whom the glass is far more than half full—like, overflowing already—that means having to say goodbye to something we are already doing before we can say hello to new opportunities.

In my case, I may have to include continuing learning in my biweekly status—a kind of accountability report of how I've progressed in my genealogy goals over a two week period. Say, adding a column for weekly online learning. Perhaps that can become my mid-day breather, or my weekend morning alternative to sleeping in.

It all depends on what I'm willing to give up to squeeze in something new. And that isn't easy. I've already discovered one thing about myself: sleeping one hour less a night isn't an option.

Thus, my own personal need to turn over a new leaf. It's almost as if I've inherited a million Genealogy Bucks—but can keep it only if I find a way to spend it all in one year.