Years ago, I would hear people who scrapbooked with me say that they were so many years behind and I could tell it bothered them.  I decided then that my more realistic goal was to be no more than a year behind.  If I was scrapbooking last year’s Spring this Spring, then I could enjoy the fun new products and memories at just the right time.  I did from time to time jump in and do a few pages of a current event to make sure I didn’t forget the details but I set my expectation to not stress on the staying “current with today” mentality.  As the years have gone on, I will swing from 6 months back to almost 2 years but generally hover around the 1 year mark and that is success for me.

This last year brought a few life changes, a big job change and with that came less time to scrapbook, pair that with a year that seems to have been a big photo year with travel and lots of fun and I had slipped further behind than I like to be but I kept working a little at a time.  Starting with 2019, I also took on a slightly different strategy to help my work move along a bit quicker.  I started focusing my 15 minutes a day several days a week on picking my favorites and I would knock out one month at a time.  I started as I always do with the current photos (January) and once I got caught up with the current month in 2019, I would go back to the next month that I had with my project and spent a few days picking my favorites and putting them in a sub-album.  If I didn’t have time to scrapbook then I would at least get my photos prepped and ready.  This has made a huge difference and I am already well on my way to having my favorites picked out already for 2019 once I get ready to do those photos too.

Remember that “caught up” can and does look different for each of us – it may be finishing one important project for you from years ago, it may be getting the next year’s album done, it may be gathering your photos and picking your favorites so that they are where you can find them and share the when you wish, it may be creating a gift for a friend.

What project do you want to get caught up with this month?  I am excited to have made some great headway the last few weeks on my project and am down to one remaining week in 2017 and will be jumping on 2018 soon.