Although it is important to sort out and document legacy stories from your past, not all of your defining moments and milestone events happened in your distant past. In fact, you are still making history every single day, mostly being recorded in real time on smart phones, tablets and in social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Linked.

If you think it's a challenge choosing legacy stories from your distant past, imagine how difficult it will be 20 years from now when choosing legacy content from terabytes of multi-media. You, or your loved ones, will have much less available time in the future to sort through thousands of Facebook posts, Tweets, emails and smart phone media.

Without a reliable strategy to identify, excavate and preserve the highest priority legacy content as you go along, and tell the stories behind these photos, keepsakes and memories while they are fresh in your mind, they will almost certainly be lost in the digital abyss. 

By reminiscing with photos and memories of events that occurred over each month as it passes, it will be much easier to choose the one or two defining moments worth your precious time to preserve as legacy stories.

There is often an amazing story hidden behind what would otherwise appear as an uninteresting photo, such as the one to the left. When a legacy photo is divorced from its narrative, it can be meaningless to others. It's the story that becomes the legacy and only you can bring yours to life...... if you act. (One day we'll share the story behind this photo with you)

Now is the time to tell the story behind today's legacy photos, keepsakes and special memories, not years from now when assuming you'll have more time.

6 Helpful Tips

1. Set an alert on your computer or device calendar for the last day of each month as a reminder to remninisce with memories and media from the past month's events. Do this right now!

2. Reminisce with purpose in your memory bank and this past month's photos and social media for obvious milestone events or defining moments such as a graduation, birth of a child, loss of a loved one or a major life transition. Most of these experiences were likely recorded in photos or some kind of media and one or two should rank high enough to be included in your legacy portfolio.

3. Little things can mean a lot when it comes to legacy stories. If no major milestone event occurred during the past month, perhaps a you'll recall a quiet conversation with a trusted friend who offered life altering advice, worthy of a legacy story. Nuances matter because they often provide a glimpse into our character, attitude, motivations and desires, 

4. Be selective when choosing digital legacy content or a special memory to tell its story. Since time is scarce, it's better to tell one legacy story than to create a list of stories never to be told. 

6. Choose the best format for telling your story. The greatest benefit of LegacyStories.org membership is that you have multiple ways to capture the essence of legacy reminiscences, all accessible in your private profile. Check them out:

a. My Journals- This component allows you to compose legacy stories and, when photos are available, insert them into the story page. When finished, you can publish and print the story out in a .pdf to compile your autobiography and as a hard copy backup. 

b. My Slideshows- Unlike Picasa and other photo websites where people generally store all kinds of photos, here is where you can create legacy slideshows that contain a series of carefully selected photos of a special event or life stage. You can drag and drop the thumbnail versions into a sequence that tells the story properly. Below each slide you can give the photo a title and type the narrative.

On top of each slide you can click the red record button and narrate each photo to create a slideshow that may have some narrated and others not. Pretty cool huh?

c. My Pict-Orals- Since most photos in the past month were likely taken on your smart phone or tablet, our free Legacy Stories IOS and Android mobile app offers a convenient way to record the story behind the photo and upload it for safe keeping.

Regardless of format, it is critical to set aside an hour on the last day of each month, to select and tell the legacy story of your "Memory of the Month ." Not only can you build a beautiful collection over time that can enrich future generations, but you can also discriminately share selected stories with loved ones and/or the greater community today with far more depth than 140 characters.

If you haven't already created your free LegacyStories.org account, I highly recommend doing so and setting that calendar alert NOW! To create your free account CLICK HERE.

Your Legacy Coach