your life story
you do not have to remember it all at once.
a life story is made from things that did not feel like a story at the time. the people around the table. a place you lived. the way someone's voice sounded.
collect the material of your autobiography.
you do not need to start at the beginning. keep memories as they arrive: a photograph that brings something back, a thought about an old home, a voice note about how this part of life feels.
footnotes is a place to gather those pieces over time. it does not automatically write an autobiography or turn your notes into a finished book.
keep the original voices.
a written memory can tell you what someone said. a recording can keep their laugh, their rhythm, the way they pause. with their permission, save the voices and stories you want to remember.
keep your own words beside a photograph or recording. the context you add today may be the detail you are glad to have years from now.
a family history made together.
share a notebook with family and collect different versions of the same afternoon. add photographs, stories and everyday updates to a timeline you can return to together.
a family memory does not have to be an anniversary or a milestone. the ordinary things often say the most about what being together was like.
let the story grow with your life.
create notebooks for places, people or chapters of your life. scroll back through their timelines when you want to revisit them, and add another part when something returns to you.
whether you eventually write a memoir or simply want to remember, you have kept more than a summary. you have kept some of the texture of being there.
a baby journal for the ordinary days too.
keep a notebook for your child growing up. save baby photos, first words, a drawing, a voice recording or an afternoon with grandparents, with your own words alongside them. share the notebook with family to keep those memories together.
looking back through the timeline can bring you to the everyday details between milestones: a favourite game, a familiar walk, something funny they used to say. it is a family photo diary, rather than a tracker for feeding, sleep or development.
start with today
what did you notice today?
keep it in footnotes. a notebook for iPhone and Android, made by Doppler HQ, Inc.
