No Mental Energy

I love genealogy, I really do! But some days, after a long day at work, I just don't have the mental energy. Let's face it, mining all the data from hints is work. Gratifying, but still work. I have a fairly rigid system for mining every bit of data from each and every hint. And I'm obsessive about syncing to my desktop software after every record addition so my online and offline trees are always in perfect sync. None of the process is difficult per se, but it can be time consuming and mentally draining. One hint can take from 2 minutes to 2 hours (for a lengthy census record or long obituary). Some nights I just don't have it in me.

I start with the best of intentions and then the mindless scrolling thru pages of never-ending hints begins. Click...click...click...nothing strikes my fancy. I look for new photos and, if I'm lucky, find one or two I can attach without much real effort. Click...click...click...I poke at a few user trees or review a DNA match just to see what I find. Click...click....click...I surf over to check for any new updates where I've uploaded my DNA to other sites. At some point I realize, tonight is just a night I'm not going to accomplish much.

Sometimes, I decide to shut everything down and take a total mental break. Or I might go kick one of my many brick walls again, just for the heck of it. On several occasions, this spur of the moment searching without any real goal has helped me solidify (or disprove) a hypothesis I've been mulling over. It's ok if I don't find anything useful, but if I do, I save the link for another day when I can give it the proper attention it deserves. These random searches are often extremely productive even if I haven't saved any records or added any new people in my tree (and I find them much less mentally taxing).

If I just can't put the effort into my own tree, I work on an adoptee search tree for a friend. It's a tree where I don't mine all the data, just attach or reject records. I can get thru a reasonable amount of hints in a short time, and it provides a little gratification I've actually "done" something. 

Researching almost every day is a labor of love. Sometimes you just need to take a break and let your mind clear. I find the days following a quick break are more productive than the days I force myself to work through just a few hints. A mental break is a good thing from time to time.

Image by Pitsch from Pixabay