Project Life has become very famous now. Becky Higgins did a wonderful job finding a simple solution for our memory keeping needs and I admire her a lot for that. The idea of this project is to provide simple and stress free scrapbooking and it definitely fit my needs.

Needless to say, I became addicted to it.

But, I have a question for you.

Are you always trying to catch up on your Project Life albums?

It is probably because you are behind by a couple of weeks or you just stumbled upon this amazing project very recently and you want to document the previous years because let’s admit it – we want a place for all those memorable photos, don’t we?

Well, you know what? I AM LIKE THAT! I am always catching up. But here’s the thing, with all that’s going on in our life and all the projects that we want to do, I realized one thing

I should NOT catch up on my Project Life!

Why?

Let me tell you my story.

Project Life happened to me when I gave birth to my Alphonse. He was faced with an early challenge in life and needless to say, I want to remember those days, his beginning, his challenge and how he is coping.

And I told myself, PL is the perfect solution – which it really is!

However, despite wanting to start my project on time, I had to put it on the back burner when my baby had to undergo surgery and we had to stay (in Manila) for a couple of months, away from my 2 other daughters and husband who were all in Singapore at that time.

Alphonse and I traveled back to Singapore after his recovery and I was already 3 months behind on the project. I thought I’d have to start soon as I arrive.

But that didn’t happen either.

By the time I was ready to start, it’s already halfway through the year. I did not give up – because I planned on “CATCHING UP”

Sounds like a cool idea? NOT!

When I started catching up, the recent weeks worth of photos to document keeps on piling up too! It’s stressing the heck out of me. And stress is not really a good company for memory keeping, right? Just imagine you forcing yourself to do your spread just because you need to “catch up”? Does it sound like you’re still keeping the memories? Technically you are, but are you still having fun doing it?

FUN disappears when stress comes into the picture! 

When you are catching up, you tend to miss the present – because you are always working in the past. And before you know it, the present becomes part of the past that you need to work too. Until it has become overwhelming and you just want to totally give up on everything. Because my friends, some people are not good at catching up. It’s true there are others who are good at it but not everyone can do it.

Then, it dawned upon me to –

Live in the present but don’t leave the past behind. 

So, to be able to keep myself up to date with Project Life and still able to enjoy it – here’s what I did

Work on the CURRENT week and GO BACK 

That’s it!

All you have to do is work on your most recent week and slowly go backwards – one week at a time, until you have filled in  the gap between the past and the present. This way, you get to enjoy documenting what’s in front of you at the moment – which by the way, is so much fun because all the ideas you have are fresh and you get to take all the time you want to create the perfect spread for the week.

Remember:

1. Memory keeping should be fun, not stressful.
2. If you want more work done, keep it simple. That’s why PL was created after all!
3. Don’t let the trends and styles overwhelm you, do whatever works for you.

Project Life is a very effective memory keeping system for us busy moms and I am all head over heels in love with it.

So if you fell behind on some weeks, don’t panic! Try this solution and let me know if it worked for you.

Or if you have a system that currently works, please do share them in the comments so our readers can learn about it as well.

And if you are still not on our mailing list, you can hop on it and get access to weekly memory keeping tips and techniques and a cute welcome gift too!

(Do you know other memory keepers in the same predicament, do me a favor by sharing this article with them).