This is my template for keeping track of major events in life. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s also a great motivator to do something memorable at least once per month. You may find yourself spending hours digging through your past to narrow down what month was it when you bought your first car, or asking yourself “When was it that the family took the trip to the Grand Canyon?”, or even “When did I get married?”. Copy this Google Doc from here to your own Google Drive and start editing!
Life Timeline Database Template (Microsoft Excel) [Coming Soon]
Here is a quick overview for how to use the template. It has five sheets (you can see them at the bottom of the spreadsheet).
“Significant Things” Sheet
Most importantly is the “Significant Things” sheet (you can rename it to whatever you like). There, you will be entering the each event into it’s corresponding cell. Along the top are the months in the year, and the rows down the left side are the years (you’ll need to reorganize a bit to make it fit your lifetime). Drag the “Age” column to the appropriate place; you’ll need to decide if you prefer it to be before or after the month you were born (since I was born on March 27th I have it placed between March and April).
The row below the month is blue (row number two). This is to list reoccurring events that happen every year in that month. Holidays are obvious examples, but also list your birthday, family members’ birthdays, your anniversary, local annual events, etc. The blue column at the far left is for predictions and notes. For past years, it is used to note things like the top grossing movie, inventions, media releases, and other things that happened that year (in an overall sense). For future years, it has probably predictions like space exploration, population, inventions, etc.
Besides that, it should be pretty self-explanatory- just fill in a brief description of what happened. I’ve listed a bunch of examples so you can see how it looks and can see how they line up with events from your life.
Here are some cool ideas of things to add to your Life Timeline Database:
- Your family’s ages (I did every 10 years)
- Pets
- Awards/Concerts/Other recognitions
- Your height (Did you keep track of it on a wall somewhere in your parents’ house?)
- How old your parents were when you were born (and same with grandparents)
- School levels
- When is the 10,000th day of your life? How about the 500th month? 500,000th hour?
- When were you half of your father’s age?
- Graduation reunions
- First kiss
- Promotions
- Buying vehicles
- Tattoos
- If you think of other cool ideas, be sure to comment below!
Google Docs supports image uploads too, so you can place a photo of your ugly mug each year on the far right side. I’d recommend finding a studio portrait, or a straight on shot for these. This way you can see how poorly you’ve aged since you were a cute kid.
“Time Since…” Sheet
This is what I call the “equilibrium formula”. I’m sure a mathematician somewhere already figured this out. What it does is determine what point in time will place an event exactly in the middle of your life. For example, the 9/11 attacks happened when I was 15.47 years old, and it has been 11.42 years since then, therefore the equilibrium date for me for 9/11/2001 is 2/25/2017 and I will be 30.94 years old. Just follow my examples and you’ll see what I mean. This sheet will also tell you the date it was when you were half of your current age as well as the date of twice your age. Confused yet? I think it’s pretty easy to figure out. It is really fun to think about (or is it scary? I always get those two confused).
“My Achievements” Sheet
This sheet is very straightforward. Just list the things that you are proud of in chronological order. The “prestige” column is just so you can note the level of awesomeness of the achievement.
“Shows/Events” Sheet
I like to have a separate listing for shows, concerts, plays, etc. that I’ve attended. This sheet is also pretty standard stuff. I like to use the notes column to describe anything significant that happened at/before/after the event itself (like, did you meet the band backstage after the show?).
“Goals to Complete” Sheet
The goals sheet is where you list things that you want to do. Like scuba diving, travelling, making the frontpage of Reddit, or owning a house; you know, the important things. List them here, and when you achieve them, move them to the “My Achievements” sheet, and don’t forget to mark your “Significant Things” sheet too!
Start playing around! It’s a good idea to occasionally download the doc as a means of backing it up. Feel free to remove anything I’ve set in the database like sports or television, and if you come up with any creative things or statistics to track definitely comment below! Keeping track of your life is so much fun when you’re looking back through it, or planning ahead. Want to know what you did three years ago this month? Now you know at a glance! Feel free to share this template because I want anyone who thinks it may be fun to keep track of their lives to be able to do that.
