Catching Up

[littlekiwi]

How do you approach catching up when doing PL in digi format? I have started both 2013 + 2014 but am only up to March in both years. My time is limited as I only have about 6 weeks of dedicated time off uni left.

[YepBrook]

See, it's the catching up part that keeps me from even doing PL. I'd love to hear how people manage it. Once I get behind on projects I tend to abandon them. :p

[rach3975]

I know more than a little something about catching up in PL, LOL. I tend to do well until about May, and then I stop doing PL all summer and spend the rest of the year catching up.

A few of my tips:
-Use products meant for PL so that some of the work is done for you. (My personal favorite is to use journaling cards and a matching kit, especially from one of the monthly PL collections.)
-Fill spaces with premade cards or patterned papers when you can and just add a few embellishments to each page.
-Limit your supplies. If you've chosen a particular kit or collection for the week, don't venture outside the kit. (I've toyed with the idea of choosing 1 kit or collection per month, but I need the variety of switching to stay interested. I still reuse kits about the same number of times, but I might use them 3 weeks apart instead of for every LO that month.)

Depending on my mood, I work in one of two ways. I get the most accomplished when I work on like tasks together. So I might sort and choose photos for 5 spreads, then choose templates and place photos for each of the 5 spreads, then finally pretty the 5 spreads up with scrap supplies. But sometimes I get bored with that and just want to scrap. That's when I choose 1 week to work on and do just that week from start to finish.

Here's my process. I try to do 1-5 all year long, even when I'm taking a PL "break."

1. Put all of my photos into folders by week.
2. Choose a week to work on.
3. Take journaling notes.
4. Delete any photos I don't want to save (blurry, bad expression, etc).
5. Copy the folder to my Project Life folder so that I don't accidentally delete things I want to keep.
6. Narrow the photos down to a reasonable number.
7. Choose a PL layout.
8. Edit and place photos.
9. Pretty it up with scrap supplies.

Enjoy your break. I hope you make lots of PL progress!

[jak]

I do it on the basis of months rather than weeks - way less pressure. I know if I tried weekly I would definitely get behind.

[littlekiwi]

I do it on the basis of months rather than weeks - way less pressure. I know if I tried weekly I would definitely get behind.

I started out weekly for 2013 but changed to monthly in 2014

[fifilur]

I'm trying to catch up right now and just finished June. I tried weekly last year and only did about a month and the quit. This year I'm doing it free flowing and that works much better for me.

[luckyme]

I don't worry about catching up, actually. :) I scrap a 2 page spread weekly. If I get behind, I just pick up with my current week. There are always weeks where I end up having more time to scrap, so I do go back and fill in some blanks. But, I haven't done any of August and I'm not worried about it. My pocket pages go in my regular album (chronological) so the regular digi pages I've done of August (for our big family vacation, for example) will fill in that time period if I never get around to doing them in pocket format.

[joelsgirl]

When I am behind, I start by sorting through my pics & writing my ideas down on paper; writing always helps me process. Moving to a monthly format might be helpful, too.