Week In The Life 2011 | Monday & Big Picture Classes Community Partnership
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Welcome to Week In The Life 2011.
Each day this week I'll be posting my photos and words for the day (it may just be scans of my Daily Sheets for the words). Because I'm doing this right along with you, I'll post my Monday photos tomorrow morning and so on throughout the week. Next week I'll share my process for bringing all the content together into an album.
As you embark today here's a couple things I encourage you to keep in mind:
Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be. There's no right or wrong way to approach this project. You might be doing in-depth documentation or you might be doing a single photo each day or something in between. When you feel yourself getting overwhelmed just take a deep breath and keep moving forward. My goal is less to get every little detail and more to simply create a picture of what seven days in a row of our lives look like right now. Some days I may have a ton of photos and other days just a few - and it all works out.
Your story is important. No matter who you are, what you do, your family structure, etc - the story you are living right now is important and worth documenting. I'm one of those people who totally wishes I had this sort of documentation before we had kids, when I was in college, etc. Life situations change so quickly and the things you think are part of your "normal" right now may not be all too soon.
Have fun with this project - it's such a great opportunity to see the basic details of your life through the lens of your camera. Use your camera as your eyes this week - shoot those things you see regularly that you notice (or maybe don't take the time to notice most of the time).
If at all possible just focus on the content gathering this week. I've had the most success with this project when I've separated the two steps - one week for content gathering and one week for bringing it all together in a completed album.
No stress. Take it one day at a time. I tend to start off really strong and taper as the week progresses. I am totally fine with that. I'd much rather have a couple solid days and a few lighter days than nothing at all.
WEEK IN THE LIFE COMMUNITY AT BIG PICTURE CLASSES
My cool announcement for the day is that I've teamed up with Big Picture Classes to offer a FREEWeek In The Life Community classroom. The community includes message boards and galleries (daily + completed projects) for sharing your project - all in one place. Click here to join the Week In The Life Community.
WEEK IN THE LIFE GIVEAWAY
Don't miss the big Week In The Life giveaway happening here.
I also want to take a minute to say thank you to the 2011 Title Sponsors. You'll see them highlighted in each of my posts this week - I truly appreciate their support of this project and hope you'll have a chance to click over and show them some support! Title Sponsors for 2011 include
TODAY'S POST SPONSORED BY | PAPER COTERIE
Join us in celebrating Begin Anywhere Month at Paper Coterie. Featuring our inspiring chat with NY Times bestselling author, Kelly Corrigan about documenting ordinary moments. Also enter to win signed copies of Kelly's book Lift. As our gift to you, please enjoy $40 to spend during August by entering the code: BEGINANYWHERE. Shipping is not included. Code is valid August 1-31.
SHOP | FACEBOOK | TWITTER
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88 comments
At first, I was feeling so overwhelmed by attempting to do this and everything else I have going on this week. Now, I'm excited to document the craziness of the week, even if it only makes it to my blog for documentation.
Thank you for the encouragement and ideas! I love when my wheels start spinning.
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This is my first year of doing this. Really excited. My birthday is this week and I am celebrating all week long with different people and fun little events. It will be a fun way to remember all of the things that happen as I start into a new year! Thanks Ali!
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I'm going to write things in a small notebook. The photos will be printed later. This week is a busy week. I get to go to CKC and generally life is busy, so I'll have plenty to document. I need to journal more, so here it is.
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Going to try and play with this project this week and not put too much stress on myself about it! Love all these posts you've had about all this! Thanks for the reminders about making it easy and making it whatever you want as well!
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Wow - this is incredible....so excited about documenting this week!!
Let the "everyday" be documented...
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Thanks Ali for such great project. This is my 2nd time and hope to create an album of creative scrapbook on my photos which I didn't get to do last year.
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Thanks Ali for coming up with this project! I did it for the first time last year and had a ball. This year I am going to definitely make the most fun of this.
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So excited! Actually, I couldn't wait so I started yesterday. :)
I'm so grateful for your encouragement, Ali!
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Isn't this so much fun?
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Yes :).
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I love this project! Let the documenting begin! Thanks for the inspiration!
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Just clicked on the BPC list and realized that this class has started. Well, off to get my camera!
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Wow, it's exciting to have this week begin. You already have great news with the BPC forum now open just for Week in the Life & the author's book giveaway. Thank you for helping all of us participate in documenting a slice of our lives.
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Thanks for the tips Ali. I had not heard of Paper Coterie before looking at your site earlier this month. I ordered two journals (one each of my two girls on the covers), as well as a poster of them to put in my new office. What luck that they are already doing another promotion for August. I will definitely be keeping them in mind for fun future projects as well.
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[...] in The Life 2011 – Monday I must admit that I don’t feel ready for Week in the Life this year. It just so happens that this is the week before I head off on a 1.5 month vacation to [...]
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I decided to start yesterday---my hubby and I only see much of each other on weekends so I decided to start strong instead of waiting 5 days!
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YAY! I'm excited to try this for the first time. I started on Sunday so I'm officially half way through Day 2! I love it so far - especially love that the documentation sheets you provided have space for listing what you are grateful for. Loved stopping to think about that last night - it was a great way to end the day.
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Here we go... :-)
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So ready - very photo happy this morning so trying to capture basics for throughout the week.
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Enjoying the day..So far so good!
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I haven't done this before. Haven't prepared anything at all in advance,but I'm going to give it a go. Thanks Ali, as always.
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