Week In The Life | Thoughts On The Process & Daily Sheet PDF
Tags:
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 -
Comments
Sign in or sign up to comment.
171 comments
Thank you Ali! This will work for me:)
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Ali - I am keen to do this for the first time this year. Next week is not going to be a "typical" week for me. It is school holidays here in NZ - I will be away for a few days and my dughter is competing in a National Trampolining Competition. I can't decide if it is a good idea to go with this week and document all these events or to wait and do a "normal" week. Any thoughts? I suppose there is no right or wrong way....
Replies
I'm also having a non-typical week next week. As much as I hate to wait,, I'm going to have to. We're doing parents & kids swim lessons 4 evenings this week & next, and the evenings have none of our normal rhythm. I'm looking forward to including in the album the fact that I now cook every night -- a new thing for me/us, but that isn't happening w/swim lessons, so I'm going to wait & do a more typical week.
I tend to do my WITL in the Fall when some of the summer craziness has passed (past 2 years)....although I'm tempted to do it with you all this time next week! We just had a summer vaca and there's still documenting to be done on this end. Either way, you can't go wrong and if you decide not to do it next week you'll be even more inspired after seeing what everyone else has done. Good luck! :)
Definitely no right or wrong - this project can be done at any time. It really all depends on what you want to see in your album - if your goal is to really capture the basics of your home life then I'd wait and begin after you return home. If you want a snapshot of your lives right now then go ahead and do next week + include whatever it is you have going on :).
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks for the PDF sheets! I wasn't quite sure how to organize myself going into this...I'm actually going to start my week tomorrow. I've always planned to join in the fun of WITL but this year I'm actually ready to jump in! Thanks so much. :)
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thank you, Ali! I’m printing these daily PDF sheets out right now. That was very kind of you to share these & I think they are exactly what I needed for next week.
I’ll think I’ll likely just download my photos at the end of each day but everything else will wait until the week after as far as assembling the album.
Regarding how WITL will correlate with Project Life…I’m doing PL this year as a photo-a-day project. My current thinking is to still do my usual photo-a-day PL layout as usual through the WITL week as I do with every other week because that is my real life and WITL will capture that. I really like the idea that in years to come I will be able to see the small snippet of the day that the PL photo & journaling card captures, then for that very same week I can also refer to the WITL album and see how much more went on every day, how much deeper & richer & full of stories each day actually was.
Thank you so much Ali, for all your creative inspiration & process around WITL. I am very excited and looking forward to it!
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thank you for the daily sheets, Ali ♥
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks so much for the daily sheets :) much appreciated!
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
I can't wait to begin this journey. I loved the December Daily,I know i'm going to love this challenge too. The PDF will come in handy thank you.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Awesome post, Ali! I really am looking forward to try it this year. :)
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
OH MY GOODNESS. I printed these IMMEDIATELY, Ali. Last year I had post-it notes all over the place (the first 2 days I was good but after the 2nd day it was post-it note chaos) ;) lol. Too funny (except when I was putting the album together and then it was not as funny...) :)
I am totally psyched. My kids look at last yr's album all the time. At least once a week. Esp my little one (who's 3 1/2). And this year these pages will come in extra handy since I just planned a last minute trip to introduce our children to my best friend from college (and meet her husband & see her son whom I haven't seen in about 7 yrs!) because we are finally w/in striking distance of her & her family. These pages will be perfect to capture it all minus the post-it notes ;)
Now...I need to find my camera battery charger which disappeared :O Of course I've never misplaced it until now when I really need it! :)
Heidi in Guelph, Ontario
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Hi Ali,thanks so much for all you do i have printed the daily sheets and have them with my daily schedule from imac ---I am a firm believer in the 3 P's which ---purpose process and payoff(result)
1. purpose to evaluate and document where my time is spent and also have fun looking how I get in my ADD mode spend hours on line!!
2.process which for me is track and take photos
3.payoff a glimpse of my week to share and also a complete album of a WITL CIRCA 2011
This will be a challenge and looking forward to some fun stuff with this also I though of putting this in altered book form instead of traditional album---will see
Thanks Again
sharon
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
So excited to do this. I am looking forward to creating this special album. Thanks Ali for sharing everything and inspiring me.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thank you for the PDF files. I haven't scrapbooked in awhile, and decided yesterday that I should start again. So I'm happy I found that you are starting your WITL again this year just in time. I think it's the perfect project to get my creative juices flowing again.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thank you!
I will start my project on Saturday, because my spouse gets a day off from rehab for the first time in six months. I think this is important for me to document. Also, this is my third time of WITL, I also took part in WE-ITL and December Daily. This time documents our struggles as an incomplete family and the disability issues of my spouse and how the kids and I manage the life nowadays.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks Ali for the PDF files. These files actually solidified the thought of just journaling the first week and not trying to put the album together the first week but instead get the stories down. It'll be a 'hectic' week anyway with extended family in town, birthday celebrations, kids returning from camp, preparing for homeschool to begin again, life.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Looking forward to documenting summer this year. Thanks for the PDF files and the inspiration to do this project again.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks, Ali! This will be handy! :)
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks Ali. I've never done this before, so I'm excited to see how it goes. Love your awesome ideas! Thanks for the PDF files, darla
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks for sharing these daily sheets Ali. I'm actually documenting this week and have already started using them for Wednesday. They work great, especially to catch all the little details of our daily schedule.
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.
I see there is a digial 8 1/2 x 11 template set for sale, is there a 12x12 or instructions on how to make the 8 1/2 x 11 work for 12x12 album? -thanks
Replies
Hi Debra - the 12x12 will be available this weekend (Saturday) at Designer Digitals.
Sign in or sign up to reply.
Thanks Ali... I was tring to figure out how to easily document all the happening for next week. These are perfect! It will help remind me, while I'm taking ALL of those photos, to capture those moments in words too. This is my first year doing a week in the life and I am soooooo excited! Thanks for sharing such a inspirational (and real) project with us. I can't wait!
Replies
Sign in or sign up to reply.