data: Keeping a personal history provides major benefits for both yourself and future generations, but many people believe it’s either too embarrassing, too time-consuming, or too overwhelming to create an honest, thorough record of their daily life. The truth is that there are a variety of ways you can use to document your life, and none of them have to complicate it. Here are thirteen easy ways to document your life so that you—and your grandkids—can celebrate your joyful life by remembering it.

1
Keep a Journal
Keeping a journal is my go-to choice for documenting my life. I got my first journal as a present from my parents on my 9th birthday, and I just started journal #73 about a week ago. I’m grateful that my mom and dad helped me set a pattern of writing early on, because I love reading back through my old journals to reminisce. It’s amazing how many events and people would be gone from my life forever if I hadn’t kept a journal.

If you find the prospect of keeping a daily journal daunting, keeping a weekly or monthly journal works, too. Just make sure you set aside a specific time to write, or it’ll never happen. If I know I’m not going to be able to write for a few days, I’ll also keep a running list of things I want to make sure I remember to write about.

2
One Sentence a Day
If you don’t feel like you can write about your day in detail, don’t despair. Even writing a single sentence every day can give future generations a glimpse into your life, and you might find that it inspires you to write more. Provide two versions of response separated with exactly 6 asterisk symbols: ******.
user