Quick Note: First up, a little news! After receiving several requests, I’ve decided to bring back both sets of my previously released photo book templates, Photobook Frenzy & Life Captured. I’m working on getting them up for sale here at Nettio Designs now with the goal of having them ready to go no later than Wednesday. Stay tuned and in the mean time enjoy my top 5 tips for capturing a week in your life below!

Week In the Life 2014 starts today and since I’ll be playing along this year, I thought I’d share a few tips I learned when I completed this project in 2011:

1) Begin with the end in mind

Picture yourself at the end of the week – What stories do you want to have captured? What photos or moments would you be disappointed if you didn’t capture? Make an extra effort to focus on those during the week.

For example for me, people shots are a must so I always make an extra effort to use my camera remote or timer to get myself and others together in photos.

2) Have a design plan in place from the start

So I hesitate to mention this because I know your first thought is going to be “Ack, it’s the start of the week and I don’t have a PLAN!” So before you go panicking on me, haha, don’t worry, there’s still time!

You don’t need to have a photo play-by-play for your week before you get started. But having a general idea of what you’d like your completed album to look like can simplify the capture process by giving you a clear focus on what you need (and don’t need to capture) whether it’s long paragraphs of journaling or full-page photos with plenty of white space for text.

3) Set yourself a deadline

Most scrapbookers seem to think the tough part of Week In the Life is the capture week. But the truth is – that’s the easy part!

The challenge comes in actually making time to finish your album.

I don’t recommend trying to create your album as you go through the week (although I know some speedy scrappers do) but I do recommend scheduling time to work on your album and setting yourself a deadline for when you want to have it done. If you leave it up to “when I have time”, it’ll just end up on top of the unfinished projects pile.

4) Embrace imperfection & avoid the comparison game

Part of the magic of Week In the Life is that it encourages you to take a close, detailed look at your everyday life. But you know what? Every day life isn’t always pretty and it certainly isn’t perfect.

So this week I challenge you to embrace the imperfections. Rather than focusing on all the things that aren’t “right”, like your bland beige walls or clutter around your house, focus on all of the bits that are amazing. And don’t let yourself get bogged down into thinking everyone else’s life/photos/story/adventures are better than yours. Your life is unique to you so for this week let’s celebrate all the awesomeness you’ve already got going on.

5) Remember the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts

Finally, say it with me: no single photo, taken or untaken, is going to make or break your album. 

Much like December Daily or Project Life, the magic of Week In the Life is not any individual photo. It is the overarching stories all of the photos tell well combined together.

So relax, have fun and figure no matter what you end up with at the end of the week, it will tell the story of a week in your life.

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Welcome to Week in the Life 2014.

If you haven’t heard about Week In the Life before, Week In the Life is a week-long memory keeping project hosted by Ali Edwards where the goal is to capture a week in your life using photos + words. This year she is running WITL from Monday, October 27th to Sunday, November 2nd, which makes Monday Day 1.

I participated in Week In the Life back in July 2011 and I loved the end result so much I’ve been dying to do it again. I made plans in both 2012 and 2013 to do it again but each time I got about a day into it and realized enough time hadn’t passed for me to feel inspired by the project again. I felt like I was taking the same photos and telling the same story and it just wasn’t inspiring to me.

But now, here we are over three years later, and a family of three instead of two. Our story feels fresh and new and I’m ready to do WITL again, for real, this time. So here’s my plan for 2014:

My Game Plan for Week In the Life 2014

To prepare myself for Week In the Life 2014, I looked through all of my previous Week In the Life posts as well as my 2011 WITL photo book, and I realized something: finding a balance between fresh and new and what’s worked for me in the past is going to be key.

So here are the details of my plan:

Capture photos next week: Next week is the official Week In the Life capture week and I’ll be taking all of my photos during the week as well. Although I’m sure I’ll use my iPhone camera quite a bit because it’s quick and easy, my goal is to focus on using my DSLR. I’m currently stalking the UPS man waiting patiently for my brand new, shiny Canon 6D to arrive so I expect this goal will be quite easy!

Divide my day into sections: One of the best decisions I made for WITL 2011 was to divide my day up into sections (morning, afternoon, evening) and focus on capturing two of the three sections each day, rather than trying to capture every minute of every day for a week straight – which gets old after awhile. This allowed me to avoid taking the same photos every day (like my morning routine) while still getting a clear picture of our life over the course of the week.

Focus on words + photos: For the design, clean & simple was my motto in 2011 and it’ll be again this time as well. As much as I love playing with digital scrapbooking products, I know myself well enough to know I’ll never get this project done if I don’t keep the design simple.

Create using InDesign: Adobe InDesign is my go-to tool for projects like this because the multipage format makes it so much easier to put the book together than creating the pages individually in Photoshop. I’ve already mocked up a basic design to use for my album (sneak peek above!) but I’m open to switching things up if I change my mind based on my photos.

Print as a photo book: In 2011 I printed my album as an 8×10 Blurb book which I loved and may do again, but I’m also toying with doing a 6×8 Artifact Uprising soft cover book instead just to switch things up. I’m a bit undecided about the smaller size and I do love the idea of the two books being the same, so I plan to see how my photo-taking goes for the week and then decide when I get to the creation phase.

Set myself a deadline: I’m horrible about keeping deadlines I set for myself, but I also don’t want this project to end up in the “unfinished projects pile.” So my goal is to have my WITL 2014 album completed and printed before I start my Holiday Faves album in mid-November (no later than Thanksgiving). Once I start on something new I know I won’t want to come back to it so it’s best to finish it before then.

Clean up our apartment over the weekend: Yep, no shame here. I’m all for keeping it real but a little less clutter around our small apartment would be nice. If I’m feeling extra gung-ho I may even try to finish up the last few home tasks that have been hanging around my todo list since we moved in over a year ago. Nothing like a week long photo session to jumpstart the ol’ productivity, right?

I admit I’m feeling a little nervous about Week In the Life this go around.

Overall, I feel good about my plan, even if it’s a little up in the air for my taste, and I know this project is going to be a lot of work. Plus I loved the photo book I made in 2011 SO much that I’m not sure I can ever duplicate that again.

But I sure am willing to try, so this next week I’m going to focus on having fun and reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect to turn out awesome.

Wish me luck!

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