Super Easy Memory Keeping Activities You Can Do in Minutes

Saving your memories doesn’t have to be elaborate. These easy methods make the things you want to remember most easy to capture. Here are five super easy memory keeping activities you can do in minutes.

Cris here.

I recently completed my “Some Lines a Day” 5-Year Journal and it got me thinking about how I have went from an elaborate scrapbooker back in the day to a what is the most realistic way I can actually do memory keeping for my family kind of gal.

Some Lines a Day Journal

I will start with the little journal that inspired this post.

I started my “Some Lines a Day” 5-Year Journal in February of 2020…

Super Easy Memory Keeping activities you can do in minutes. Saving your memories doesn't have to be elaborate. These easy methods make the things you want to remember most easy to capture.

Can we just pause and appreciate the timing of keeping a 5 Year Journal from February of 2020 through January of 2025???

My sweet little memory keeping journal accidentally turned into a dystopian novel on me!

I kid, I kid.

Actually one of the GREAT things about a journal like this is that you quickly begin to notice that even when things seem bad, there is a LOT of good things that happen that we tend to not notice as much.

This journal is the a very low maintenance way of keeping memories. Each page is divided into 5 sections and you literally write …you guessed it…some lines a day.

I am actually surprised at how easy this was to maintain. I have already started another one that allows room to add pictures from my mini photo sticker printer on the side page… more on the printer in a minute.

Just a Photo a Day

Another super easy to manage memory keeping idea is to commit to taking just a photo a day.

You can take a photo of your pet, your morning walk, your lunch or a special memory.

Doesn’t matter what it is, just a way of remembering something that happened that day. You would be surprised at how often those mundane photos can bring back a little smile.

Make a Memory Jar

If daily memory keeping is too daunting, try doing something weekly.

One thing my family did both last year and currently is make a Memory Jar.

This one works best if you set a reminder on your phone or you make it a part of something you already do each week.

My family does it on Family Game Night, every week at Family Game Night, we each take a sticky note and jot down one memory from the week.

Then on New Year’s we pulled all the notes out and read each one.

It was such a fun walk down memory lane.

We then put a lid on the jar and store it on the shelf.

Yes, yes, we totally canned memories.

Photo Journal, Planner or Calendar

One of the memory keeping activities I have done in the past is use my mini photo sticker printer to print out a daily photo sticker and stick it to my journal, planner or calendar.

This one could be done daily, weekly or monthly.

It is quick, simple and also a great way to revisit memories down the road.

Automated Photo Books

I hesitate to include this last one, but it has for years been a great solution for me even though there have been some issues of late.

I am a big believer in having physical photos…but I stink at making regular picture books.

So when I found a company that would automate my photo books, I was sold. The company I used was Chatbooks, however, there may be other companies out there too.

I loved Chatbooks because I used to be able to post photos to my personal instagram and they would print those photos into photo books automatically and send them to me.

I LOVED it. Having my physical photo books automatically arrive was the PERFECT solution for me.

An extra bonus for this method is that you can also gift a subscription to your photos to grandparents. This gift was very well received by Memaw who LOVES her picture books.

However, recent changes at Instagram have made it impossible to keep this automation going.

Chatbooks has been working on solutions, but truth be told I haven’t had the time to mess with it.

(Keeping it Real: One downside of any automation I have learned the hard way that companies may have to change things from time to time and that can disrupt your automation… leaving you with a big job back on your plate when the whole point was to have one less thing on your to do list.)

However, I am pretty sure you can create a photo folder on your phone, add photos to it and set it up to automate things again, but definitely look into things before signing up for any service because it can change at any time. I will update this post once I get things figured out.