My Current Memory Keeping Process

I am not casually interested in scrapbooking. It is a probably not a surprise to you, that I the founder of a digital scrapbooking website, might engage in a few scrapbooking activities. However, you may not be quite ready for all the ones I have ongoing right now. Most of the projects that follow are ongoing, long term projects that I've been doing for years. And I've certainly mentioned them all before, but not in one place.

Digital Pocket Scrapbooking
I consider my yearly digital pocket scrapbook album to be my "main" memory keeping project. I document all our random photos every week in a spread and include a very minimal amount of journaling. I've been doing this for years, so the habit of every Saturday collecting my photos and adding them to my preferred pocket template is pretty ingrained at this point. A change for me recently was acquiring an iPad which is what I use now to decorate my pocket pages. You can read all about my process here.

Hybrid Travelers Notebook & Junk Journals
My travelers notebook and junk journals I consider to be in my "disposable" memory keeping category. For a while I had a hard time doing things with paper because it feels so temporary after working in digital. Eventually I realized since I already keep my digital pocket book, the things I make with paper don't really need to stand the test of time. If they do, great, if not I have other projects. These paper crafts are really more about the process for me and less about the memory keeping. This was an important distinction for me to realize and really freed me up to do what I wanted with the papers. You can read all about my process for travelers notebooks here and junk journals here.

Digital Line a Day Journal
As I mentioned before, I have certain issues with things done on paper and feeling like they won't last. I wanted to keep one of those line a day journals for quite a while, but I could not get over the paper journal being both a pain to carry around and my fear that I'd lose it or something. Eventually I got wise and created a spreadsheet where I could jot down a short description of the day. I've been doing it for three years now and I couldn't be happier with my boring but practical spreadsheet. It's really fun to look back a couple years and see what was happening. You can read more, and download, the spreadsheet here.

Writing Haikus
This is the most recent addition to my memory keeping process. I've long lamented my terrible journaling skills. And especially since my children were born I've struggled to capture moments in what feels like a meaningful and sensory way. My journaling is quite limited, photos are better, but recently I started capturing specific moments in haikus and I'm amazed at how rereading them can really take me back to a very specific moment. I'm not sure they'll be interesting to anyone else, but I do really treasure the ones I've written. All you need to do for a haiku is write three lines: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. And you can totally cheat is you want. The structure helps me as I don't "know" how to write a poem, but I can count. Since I'm a concise person, the haiku is perfect for me because I really don't want that many words anyway.

I really wanted to include this part of my memory keeping list here because it's not a common one shared in the scrapbooking community, but I've really loved it. Do you have any usual memory keeping practices? Please share below!