Getting a Handle on That Round Tuit

So many tasks, so little...wait! We've got more time on our hands now than we've had in a long while. It seems this month has been raining down "round tuits" and all we have to do is reach out and grab some.

This week, since all the time I used to swallow up by driving to meet people has been redeemed by staying at home, I've had plenty of opportunities to come up with creative solutions to time wasting usage. Last week, all I could think of was to wonder how all my family and friends were doing, stuck in their own ivory towers. This week, thankfully, I'm more energized by the thought of tackling some hands-on projects that have long needed the attention.

Surprise! I've finally tapped into a wealth of round tuits! This week, it seems, we all are rich in round tuits.

There are quite a few genealogy-oriented tasks that fall in this category. The main goal is to do something active, instead of just sitting around, looking at a computer. Of course, going to the library is out. Nix a trip to the archives, too. But there has got to be something that gets us moving while accomplishing a long-neglected item on our genealogy to-do list.

I've got plenty of candidates for this. Remember all those photos which need to be scanned? (And labeled, too!) Documents in old files which could better be handled if scanned and stored digitally, instead of collecting dust or hogging space in boxes out in the garage? You get the idea. We may think our family history is kept in tidy electronic folders and databases, but those of us who started this research journey before the advent of online FamilySearch or Ancestry.com know better. We have papers to show for it.

I don't know what mountains of paper you have yet to move from your back office or garage, but I know what I have to face: I'm a lifelong writer of notes-to-myself. These are the little bits of scrap paper upon which I've scribbled a reminder to check up on a name, get an obit, or mind another task which goes far beyond the problem I currently was handling. It represents those to-do items that don't fit in just now...but then never seem to fit into the picture at any later time, either.

I started conquering that mountain of notes-to-self yesterday, and I realized the hazard of such a move. One tiny three-by-four card with a name and a date and "get obit" scribbled across the face of it opened the door to an hours-long process of cleaning up an entire branch of my mother-in-law's family tree. (Why it always impacts my mother-in-law's tree, I'll never know; it just seems like it.)

Now, I have even more notes-to-self telling me where to go back and straighten out the mess I made yesterday, while "cleaning up" that item the reminder was prompting me to attend to yesterday. Work multiplies. I can vouch for that. It may take me the rest of this entire week to clean up that one well-meaning attempt to organize yesterday. But who cares? Those of us who do not succumb to the corona virus may have another month, sequestered at home, ahead of us. And enough round tuits to fill the void for each of the days ahead.