Dad's genius hack helps parents remember every precious moment
Parents these days document nearly every moment of their kids' lives in photos. But what's often missing from our memories is the sweet circumstances that surrounded a picture or the hilarious thing your little comedian said.
Matthew Dicks, a Newington, Connecticut, dad of two has a hack to capture the precious moments of the every day. He wrote about it for Parents.com.
"It’s amazing how easy it is to forget the magical little moments you assumed would get tattooed on your brain," Dicks wrote. "I promise that my technique for holding on to happy memories works."
It's called Homework for Life and here's how it works. At the end of every day, Dicks sits down and records the most story-worthy moment of the day, "even if that moment seemed boring, benign, uninspiring, and not worthy of telling at all," he said. He asks himself, "If I were forced to tell a story from my day, what would that story be?"
All you need for Homework for Life is an excel spreadsheet. No need to tell the entire story - that would take too much time and effort, advised Dicks. In column A, list the date. Stretch column B to the far end of the computer screen. In that elongated column B record the story. It intentionally limits the space to only allow for a sentence or two to capture the moment.
Dicks teaches storytelling for a living and said the method helps his clients "recognize and record the stories of their life." The way he uses Homework for Life in parenting, he told "Good Morning America," is simply a variant of that process.
"It's designed for parents because we are the most egregious offenders of allowing these precious moments with our children to slip away," he said. "Suddenly they are graduating from high school and we are left wondering where the time has gone. How time flew by so fast. It didn't. We just didn't bother to take note of it and didn't make an effort to remember it."
He's given a TED talk about the process and describes it in his book, "Storyworthy."
Dicks said new parents are typically excited to learn about the process, while parents of older kids often feel sad about what's already been forgotten. But it shouldn't deter parents from starting at anytime.
"I've had people in their 70s and 80s begin Homework for Life and find enormous value in the process," he said.
He said the longer people engage in the Homework for Life process, the "better you get. Lots of people are gung-ho at the start but don't see many meaningful moments right away. It needs to be a habit that you never skip. Just like brushing your teeth, Homework for Life needs to be something you do every day, and especially on the days when there is nothing obvious to record."
Among the hundreds of memories of his own children, one stands out.
"We're using an app that tells us when the ISS will fly by," Dicks recalled. "We keep missing it because of cloud cover. Finally I spot it and call for Charlie. He runs outside, naked, because he was about to get in the bathtub but was afraid to miss it. He stands on the front stoop, completely naked, watching the ISS fly by. When it's passed, he says, 'I saw the ISS! And so did my butt!"'
