Capture Memories with Homework for Life

Everyday, we are creating special memories; even during this pandemic.

Matthew Dicks has had an unbelievable life. Crazy things have happened to him, so much so that his friends encouraged him to go on stage to compete in a storytelling contest. He has since won the Moth StorySLAM competition 45 times and is 6-time GrandSLAM champion.

What he found was that those crazy stories weren't his best stories. The stories that people love to hear are the little stories of everyday life. They are the stories that people can relate to. When he realized this, he wanted to find more small stories that exist in his life to remember and share.

He created "Homework for Life". He writes a sentence or two every day of something story-like that happened. He found that his project turned into magic as his "storytelling lens" sharpened and got refined.

He says that by taking 5 minutes at the end of your day to capture it,  Homework for Life helps you notice that your days aren't always the same and meaningless.

He found that life slowed down and time doesn't fly for him anymore.

Here is the Ted Talk where he presented Homework for Life. I highly encourage you to watch it. I have watched it multiple times since I first found it. I purposely omitted great parts of the video in my blog post.



I was trying to remember where I learned of Matthew Dicks. I thought it was from Marie Masse but couldn't remember exactly from what. I get lots of inspiration from Marie by email, from a course I'm taking with her and her podcast.

I started a Homework for Life spreadsheet at the beginning of January. I haven't gotten into the habit of reflecting at the end of the day but I have written down stories for most days by looking at my calendar and photos as reminders. I'm just looking back at my list now and because I have been writing down memories, I see that I first watched the video on January 9th after learning about Matthew Dicks from Marie's 71st episode of her podcast: Intentional Documentary. She has taken a break from her podcast this year, but I highly recommend listening to her podcast from the start if you're interested in photography and storytelling.

Just looking back at my spreadsheet, I can see stories that I'm happy I captured because I had already forgotten some of them.