Tag Archives: project management

The Battle of the 12 George Longs

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(The title is a Lord of the Rings/Hobbit reference in case you missed it. It made sense to me.)

I’ve mentioned a few times in past blog posts a project I’m working on to determine which George Long of the seemingly thousands in Ohio in the 1820s to 1830s is the George Long who died in Hancock County in 1855. I started working on this project as preparation for taking one of the Irish courses I’ve taken over the years… thinking I’d figure out how to get my George into Ireland. However, once I really got started, I realized I’d need to figure out WHICH George Long was even mine to begin with. And once I started analyzing things, I identified 12 George Longs who had even the slightest potential to be the right man. You have to eliminate those to be sure. The final element of the Genealogical Proof Standard is that you have to present your findings in writing, especially in tough cases that aren’t self-explanatory. If it isn’t in writing and accessible somewhere, it does no good to other researchers anyway.

[Unless you are one of those people who love to find the answer and then hoard it for yourself (like Gollum). Don’t be Gollum. He nearly destroyed all of Middle Earth.]

I am finishing up this project but ran across my early beginning notes, which are funny but also have part of the resolution I came to on them!

It was fun to look back at these scribbles once I’ve nearly finished and am confident in my findings. And it is good to know, even after this journey of identifying the correct George Long, that I was on the right track in the beginning.

This has been consuming my time over the past few months (along with my day job and my family), but I’ll be back to blogging more regularly (I hope) once I finalize this project and get it off my desk. In the meantime, happy scribbling!

Top Tools I Use: Project Management

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I have a lot of irons in the fire at any one time. Between client work, volunteer positions, speaking arrangements, and personal projects, I have a lot to keep track of. There are a lot of tools that can be used for this. I like Asana. It allows me to make categorized lists, with subtasks, and calendar reminders.

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I find the interface to be easy to understand and set up. In the image above you can see some of my categories: Lectures, Volunteer Tasks, Calls for Papers, Personal Genealogy, Articles to Write. I also have a category for Client Projects, general business admin, and so on.

The sub-tasks allow you to keep track of more details. I use this most when there are smaller tasks to be finished as part of a larger project. For example, in the image below, you can see that I for upcoming speaking agreements, I keep track of when various contracts, forms, bio and headshot, syllabus and other materials are due. I also keep track of whether I’ve made travel and hotel arrangements, and any other details. You can also attach files and links.

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Asana makes completing your to-do items fun by also playing cute animations when you click off your items.

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There are many online videos, tutorials, and help files that help you get into the details of Asana. See some of these for more:

Tools like Asana can help you stay on top of all of your tasks. With so many tasks, projects, and responsibilities, I couldn’t live without it. Well, I could, but I’d be much more disorganized.