Write your own timeline

I tried this the other day in preparation for my autobiography. :>)

• Open a word processor.
• Type out each year you’ve been alive.
• Fill in one major event or accomplishment or memory for each year.

It’s harder than you think. But once you’ve struggled through it, take it a few steps further:

• Try going back and adding a second, third, and fourth entry for each year (in other words, one for each season).
• Once you’ve made four entries per year, try adding entries for each month.

You could keep going to the week or even day, but I ran out of ideas at the month level.

This is both wonderful (you re-live some of your life at a glance) and painful (you realize that some years/seasons/months didn’t add much to your life).

Overall, it’s a consciousness exercise. You become more aware of where your life’s been… and even where it’s headed.