Week In The Life | Thoughts On The Process & Daily Sheet PDF
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Next week I'll be documenting a week in our lives.
Seven days of photos and words, chronicling the little things and the big things that happen from Monday through Sunday.
There's so many different ways to approach this project. There's no right or wrong.
Maybe you'll follow along with me and focus on the theme of time this year. Check out my design plan and supply list here.
Maybe for you this project will be an attempt to catch just one story per day with words or photos.
Maybe for you this project will be all on your blog and you won't be creating an album.
Maybe you'll go all-out and jot down things as they happen on an hourly basis (even doing this for one day during the week is really cool).
If this is your first time participating in this project I highly recommend you read this post: The Basics Of Documenting A Week In Your Life. I've also got completed examples from a couple years available here: 2008 and 2010.
For me this project is about capturing the rhythms of our days over a period of one week. What time are we waking? What time are we falling into bed? What's special about our family right now? How can I pay close attention to (and honor and celebrate) the things that are happening now which likely won't be the same next year?
This project is simply an opportunity to capture the real, the basic, the rush, the slowness, the crazy, the simple, the ups and the downs of a single week. Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.
Next week my focus is ONLY on documenting. I won't be putting the album together at all. I'll be using my camera and writing things down and just letting the week evolve. The actual bringing it all together will happen the following week.
Week In The Life Schedule
Here's what's happening next week:
MONDAY | The week begins with a special Week In The Life giveaway from the 2011 sponsors. The comments on the giveaway will be open through Friday with the winners posted on the following Monday.
TUESDAY THROUH SUNDAY | Each day I'll share my photos and words for the day. At the bottom of each post I'll include a link widget for you to link to your own blog or site sharing your photos and words. Seeing others photos and reading their words are such a great way to get inspired and to think about other things you'd like to include in your own project.
WEEK OF AUGUST 1 | I'll be sharing my completed album.
Free Daily Sheets PDF To Help Document Your Week
As I was thinking about how I want to approach my content I remembered that when I first taught this class back in 2005 I included Daily Sheets for people to use to document pieces of their day. I created a new PDF that's geared towards what I'd like to include in my album and am making it available for you to download here.
The simple idea is to print out this PDF and keep it with you throughout the week for a very easy way to write things down. It's possible that not everything you write on here will make it into your album and it's also possible (and likely for me) that I'll be writing even more stories on the back on these sheets.
My hope is that this will give you a starting place.
The PDF includes 14 pages - 2 for each day of the week. The first page features time by hours (all 24 hours are listed) and the second page includes a spots for food (breakfast, lunch and dinner), observations, gratitude, favorite memory, and overheard.
Download the Week In The Life Daily Sheets here (3.1 MB).
I hope you're getting excited! Charge up those camera batteries -
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171 comments
This is so awesome Ali, thank you! My daily sheets are printed and clipped into my clipboard - ready to go. My camera battery is charged too, I just need to dig out the tripod. :)
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This year, I'm taking Hipstamatic photos and using one of Cathy Zielske's digi Instagram templates. Simple, one page per day approach with a little daily ephemera thrown in.
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Thanks so much Ali for providing this PDF. I was just thinking I needed to put something together along these lines so that I could more easily track my week. I didn't do this last week & really struggled (hence the unfinished 2010 WIL album - the photos are all there but not the documenting/journalling).
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Your comment made me grin - as my album for 2010 is far from completed, too! Oh, and not even to speak of 2008 :) My goal is to get those pages from 2010 ready (only some digi paper and sentiment tabs missing) and have them printed with the ones from this year - that would be so, so cool. Good luck with tying yours together!
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Awesome! Thanks.
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Thanks Ali. I am a first timer too, and am drinking up everything you say at the moment in preparation. My supplies are slowly arriving in the mail and I am getting really excited about it. I have hardly been scrapping lately and I am looking forward to getting a week of our life documented to have a record of something for 2011. I just hope I can get enough photos taken.
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Thank You so much for the pdf, i was jus thinking about making something similar now i wont have to. Thank you so much
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[...] here to go to Ali’s latest post on her website to see her thoughts on the process of Week in the [...]
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Thanks for the pdf files. I can't wait to do this. I do need some advice. The week in the life is overlapping a road trip we're taking for the last 3 days. What would be a good strategy for dividing this project from the travel journal???
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Thank you for this, do you think you will be able to get the 12 x 12 digital template up this week?
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Yep! It's all ready to go ;)
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So, I'm looking forward to getting back to scrapbooking.... after a VERY long break - and hope this is the inspiration that I need!! I'm just wondering, I've been creating separate scrapbooks for both of my children to call their own later in life. How do you see this type of scrapbook being passed down to children. Thanks!
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This is great Ali, thank you so much for the download. I am somewhat ready but have a couple new ideas I might try out too instead. My kids just informed me to make this year's bigger and better then last years,lol
I wanted to ask you if you have a plan for some specific stories or photo ideas next week? Anything like the garden, new house, first summer there?? Just curious.
Thanks again and I'm so excited.
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The words that I am holding to heart are 'this project is about capturing the rhythms of our days...' "what time are we waking? etc.' And... How can I pay close attention to the things that are happening now which likely wont' be the same next year?
Ali... I am in your otw class. I have my word.. and I am living it.. big huge steps... and the there is so much that will not be the same next year.. because of my word... My family will not be the same we are all are experiencing the ripples.. that is all I am going to say... it's personal stuff.. however, WITL will capture 'this life' that we have together, for one week, this year.
And. next year I will to the same and compare them..
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I was so excited about the timing of this years WITL. And my main goal is to document simply the happenings of the week. These should come in very handy. Thanks, Ali for the pdf's and WITL.
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Thank you so much! I really appreciate you sharing these PDFs! I'm so excited to document our week next week!
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Thanks Ali, I just printed them out. I'm very excited for this year (as long as it doesn't start at one AM like last year!). I need to get organized. Last year I had envelopes and folders ready to go and that was so helpful. I also love looking back at my blog and timestamped photos from that week. I'm sure this year will be much different, can't wait to slow down and take it ALL in for the week!
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This is so exciting, Its the first time im doing this, so I'm looking forward to it!! Im doing project life this year also.
In New Zealand its winter and i do find it harder to find things to photograph as we dont do as much. Its awfully cold, but we dont have the fun of any snow to take cute snow photos!! Ideas for photos would be great!! There is only so many photos one can take of fog and frost and ice :)
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I'm with Jules... I live in Belgium and although it should be summer, it looks like fall the last days. Between april and june we had such dry weather, our weatherman called it sahara-like conditions. And now we have chill and showers all day long... I would take pictures of how I and my family cope with the weather: do you have special house-socks for instance, for when your feet are freezing. Do you do games when it's to cold to go outside. what's cooking? Any winter time pick me ups? (like coco, or cakes or stews...) Just thinking. Figure u are telling those who don't live near you, how you deal with this kind of weather.
Denise, it is funny how always want what someone else has - we are Kiwis (from the depths of Southland) who have been living in remote Western Australia for the past five years. While I don't miss things like dealing with the laundry in the winter our relentlessly sunny, warm days can be monotonous! We can only plant a vege garden in the winter here as it is so hot in summer nothing will survive. Enjoy the contrasts your winter weather brings you :)
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Thank you for the PDF! I am excited to actually do this this year!
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Ali, I have to say that I'm always inspired by what you create. I've done the December Daily and am currently doing Project Life. Do you find that the Project Life and a Week in the Life overlap? I'm not sure how to do both without repeating myself but I really want to give it a try. Thank you!
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Hi Rhonda - for me Week In The Life has always been much more detailed. Rather than a single photo a day or a few over the course of the week, with Week In The Life I might use 20 photos or more for a single day. I'll still be doing Project Life next week and it will be the same as all my other weeks - more of an overview vs. details in order of our days.
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Thank you for the starter pages for the week. This is my first time doing the Week in the Life. I am so excited!! I have so many ideas of how I want it to look.
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Just printed my sheets. Thank you so much for these, Ali! This is my 3rd yr doing Week in the Life and these sheets will help a lot!
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