It’s all in the details!

I have always been interested in “the details”! Part of that is probably genetic, and part early life styling. Pretty much as soon as I could walk, I found trains and soon became a typical English boy train-spotter, so collecting locomotive numbers (recording what I had seen) became a way of life. I also loved all things nautical and so, again as a young boy, I would collect pictures of ships.

The train spotting eventually dictated I travel outside of my area to get more variety, and my desire for ship pictures dictated I search for other sources than post card racks in stores. I still have some old trainspotting books from the late 1950s/early 1960s, and I still have a collection of ship photographs/pictures! It’s all in the details!

When I took an interest in cycling, the details again were important as I not only wanted to understand how my bike worked, but I slowly built up mileage until I could complete some significant distances. Much the same happened in later years when I embarked on a self-coached goal of running a marathon. Any challenge of that nature is more achievable if the details are taken care of so I planned around mileage runs, interval workouts and timing of races as my running ability increased. It’s all in the details!

My working years were much the same and employers who wanted “quick fixes” to problems would be very frustrated with me. Conversely, those who wanted the details, and the efficiencies that tended to follow, loved me! There are no doubt times when superficial solutions are adequate but, from my perspective, there is no substitute for solutions that are based on a detailed understanding of the cause and effect of the issues, followed by a thorough understanding of the potential solutions. It’s all in the details.

One of my retirement projects is to go through all the family photographs (an assortment of albums and boxes) and organize them such that they record family history for my children, grandchildren and their offspring. It’s all in the details!

I can go back to the mid-1800s, and so to create a set of family albums would amount to probably 15-20 x 6″ binders full! Thinking of the details, there is a strong possibility that not all my descendants are going to be interested in every photo of everybody, so perhaps I should establish different sets of albums. Smaller sets may be of more interest? I could base the albums around the key people displayed, so each of my two children would end up with an album focused mainly on themselves? Perhaps I should also create a separate album for my granddaughter? My parents could stay together, but pictures before they were married? It’s all in the details!

I have had numerous interests over the years, each of which would fill a small album. Do I allocate an album for my various volunteer interests over the years? Both my running and my cycling history could each fill a large album , and then there’s my music interests, and my various home renovation projects.  Even adding text to the album pages is important in order to add some colour and put the pics into a context … and of course many stories can be told about certain historical events.

A simple project of mounting photographs into albums has not only become an organizational challenge, but adding memories wherever possible has expanded it to become more of a life record than a simple visual display. It’s all in the details!

Being detail oriented does have some distinct benefits, but putting together something as straight forward as a family history, based around photographs, can easily become a major planning challenge. It’s all in the details! Just thinking!

39 thoughts on “It’s all in the details!”

  7. What a wonderful project! I have sometimes wondered what will happen to all the pictures residing in the Ethernet. How will our children and grand-children, etc. ever get to see them after we are gone? Perhaps I will start a project of my own… 🙂 Just thinking…

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  8. I admire you! I’ve been thinking of something similar but the older generations. We don’t have a lot of pictures farther than the 1940s and none of one grandparent. I would have to “get” photos from my brothers and try to categorize and sort. Most of the photos are not great ones either but it’s all we have. Maybe this winter (although I said that last winter).

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  9. I think its a great project that you started, even if it time consuming because of all the details that you have to think about. Pictures can tell such a story and be so wonderful to look at, as they take you back in time.
    Brad is very detail oriented and it frustrates him at work when the management overlooks details that end up making his job harder.
    On the other hand, he can often find humor in some of my emails when I accidentally overlook some tiny details and the words may not say exactly what they are supposed to!
    Yes, its all in the details! Sometimes its just the difference between an i and a l. 🙂

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