15 Minutes a Day

You can make meaningful and enjoyable progress learning about family history in as little as 15 minutes a day.

On a busy schedule? Here are some tips for getting the most out of your family history experience in a limited amount of time

Decide on which day(s) of the week you'd like to spend learning and working on family history.
Choose a target time of day that works best for you, when you have a short amount of uninterrupted time available.
For the first few sessions, choose an amount of time per session that works for you. This could be 10 minutes, 15, 20, etc. You can spend more time on a particular session if you like, but try to meet your minimum if at all possible.
Select a topic from the Get Started page for your session. You can make the selection at the beginning of each session, or you can plan out a series of session topics. If you plan ahead, you may want to browse the list of topics to see which ones appeal to you the most.
When you click the link and begin your session in The Family History Guide, follow the steps carefully and then read the articles or watch the videos that are linked on the page. In Project Choices, you can also find Exercises to do.
Take notes in the Online Tracker for the topic you are working with. Remember that it's more important to learn and experience a few meaningful things, rather than cover as much ground as possible.
Between your sessions, reflect occasionally on what you have learned and done in the last session, and how you feel about your relationship to your ancestors.

Schedule—Click here for a handy schedule to help you fit family history activities into your life.
Check out this webinar showing Thomas MacEntee's 15-minute approach.
For more ideas, watch this 2022 RootsTech video or this 2019 RootsTech video.
Divide and conquer with these 20 suggestions from Deborah Gamble's video Family History in 5 Minutes a Day.

In the Activities section of The Family History Guide, you can find a wealth of fun and easy activities to get you and your family or friends involved in family history. Activities marked with an asterisk (*) require little or no preparation to do.
To see a list of all the available activities, check out the Activities Index.
There are also quick family history activities designed for Latter-day Saints.
See this link to get started.

Learn how to make regular progress in your family history research, 30 minutes at a time, courtesy of Family Locket: Tips for Researching in Small Increments of Time
Use these helpful time management tips in your research, from Ancestral Findings: 5 Genealogy Research Time-Management Tips
Here are some additional ideas for making the most of the research time you have: MH—No Time for Genealogy? Here's What You Can Do with the Time You Have