Procrastination and Perfectionism

After setting up this blog on a whim I then proceeded to spend the next couple of months wondering what on earth to talk about here. Whilst I have many interests (which shall no doubt crop up here) I've now come to the conclusion that, given that blogs are entirely selfish entities, that I should use it, amongst other random musings, to keep a track of my current research into my family tree and my general deteriorating state of mind as a consequence of this. It seems as good a place as any...

So, to start, I already have a web page at...

http://helengoodchild.googlepages.com

... but I'm sorry to say that it's a bit of a mess whilst I try and work out the best way of actually showing everything. I've got 382 people in my tree and counting which, I know, is nothing compared to many genealogists out there, but is still somehow enough to have caused me a filing nightmare. Doing a bit of research on the web for the best method just left me a bit perplexed as there seem to be a thousand different methods. I recently read an article on Ancestry about Procrastination (of which I am the queen) and Perfectionism. Whilst I've never thought of myself as a perfectionist (far from it!) I actually think that I have a little of column A and a little of column B here. Papers mount up uncontrollably, but I don't want to file them unless I can do it neatly and perfectly. I can't bear the mess but yet can't bring myself to sort it out at all. This takes me back to the last month of writing my PhD thesis where I couldn't bring myself to go to the library as I couldn't find the right sort of pen...

Well, my new year's resolution was to get it sorted, yet here we are in February and it's nowhere near done. I have, however, progressed to the stage where I have seven big piles sitting on my lounge floor each for a different surname and I think I'm beginning to get an idea of how this can be done neatly, perfectly, and without too much damage to my anally retentive soul...