If life is a journey, documenting your life story is more than just stopping to smell the roses; it is pausing to take a photo or two.
Life can be an epic adventure, filled with incredible moments and stories worth passing down to future generations. Many people choose to document their journey – whether it’s to reflect on the highlights of life or simply because they have a story too incredible not to share.
However, one vital aspect of documenting your life that people overlook is the well-being and health benefits that contribute to overall happiness.
What Exactly is Personal Archiving?
Personal archiving is the action of preserving personal and family memories. Usually, it involves collecting, organising, cataloguing, and safeguarding digital or physical documents and items that are significant to a person or family as a way to remember their past. These treasures can include anything from photos, letters, diaries, recipes, audio recordings, artwork, tax records, and other personal effects.
For most people, the items may be kept in an album or scrapbook, stored on a computer, external hard drive, or other storage devices, or archived in an accessible online database.
Personal archiving allows people to stay connected to their family history while allowing generations of descendants to discover more about their ancestry and cultural heritage.
The Benefits of Documenting Your Life Story
Debby Bittick, the author of Cherished Memories, writes in her guide 101 reasons to document one’s life. But beyond creating a legacy to leave your family, personal archiving presents the opportunity to live enriched lives.
As we look into this, there are more personal and health benefits why everyone should document their life story.
Exercises the Memory
Collecting and organising memories, whether photos, videos, documents, or audio, takes you down memory lane, allowing you to analyse past events that may still impact your life.
Boosts Self-Awareness and Growth
Personal archiving is an invaluable tool for boosting self-awareness. By carefully collecting and preserving personal memories, you can more deeply understand your past, present, and future self. Much like journaling, you can gain insight into your life experiences, emotional states, and relationships. It allows you to reflect upon what has been meaningful and how it has shaped your sense of identity.
Uncovers the Joy of Belonging
Preserving family memories also offers a unique opportunity for strengthening familial bonds. With shared archives that document family life, members can explore their history together. This shared experience can help unite families across generations, allowing them to form stronger relationships with each other and learn about their heritage.
Creates an Ethical Will
For parents, one of the most fulfilling achievements is seeing their children happy and on the right path. That doesn’t always come from providing material possessions but successfully passing on values and life lessons that will ensure the quality of life.
Documenting your life can help to capture values- your own and your family, blessings, life lessons, hopes and dreams for the future, forgiveness, and love into an ethical will.
Where to Start Creating a Personal Life Archive
You do not need to be a writer or a professional biographer to write your life story – all it takes is you. From the first house where your childhood memories live, to your first home as an adult: You can start piecing together those pieces chucks of life that make up who you are today.
Preserve Your Memories with a Digital Vault
Much like professional documents, personal memories need to be stored in on stable, secure, and reliable storage with frequent back up or otherwise, you risk losing them.
The digital era has created an influx of records that can’t be preserved in paper form – and this presents a challenge.
How do we ensure these files will remain available to future generations? By preserving them as natively digital, so as not to lose valuable functionality such as search or sharing options.
As technology changes, however, personal digital content on phones or other social platforms becomes increasingly vulnerable. The Autumn Whispers app takes these into account to ensure the safe storage and longevity of memories through guardian connections.
