Scrapbook “Your” Story #7: Work

by Debbie Hodge

This is number 7 in an 11-part series full of ideas for making scrapbook pages about yourself.

consider yourself: work

Without labor nothing prospers.  -Sophocles

It could be paid employment, personal gardening, home keeping, raising children, volunteering or any number of things, but almost every one of us does some work. For many of us work is a central part of our lives and even our identity. Why not get it in your scrapbook? As soon as you begin scrapping your work, others around you will probably have a new respect for all that you do that they’d never suspected.

approaches for scrapbooking work

While the following are written in the language of “jobs” and “employment” you can apply any of them to other work you do — whether it’s being a parent or a volunteer or keeping a home or creating a garden.

• Create a layout that is an overview of the many types of work you’ve done and/or jobs you’ve had. You could use a time-line or resume format.
• Convey the sense of one occupation or work on a layout.
• Use “dash facts” or bulleted items to cover lots of topics in a limited space.
  -tell about what you do, your job title
  -List boss, coworkers, employees
  -note hours and relevant details about the daily schedule or routine
  -include address, commute route, lunch destinations
  -add details like pay, cost of commute, raise history
• Scrap a page that’s a “day-in-the-life” at work.
• Use a day-planner format to note what you did hour-by-hour on one particular day. Trust that the essence of the job will come through via this detailed example.
• Scrapbook a specific project, accomplishment, or task. Include journaling and/or photos that reveal:
  -what the task was
  -the “before” situation
  -how you did the work, including approach, what went well, what was a problem
  -the end result
  -your feelings about your work on this project.
• Scrap about the importance of work in your life.
• Scrapbook your work done at home:
  -what is your approach to house work?
  -what do you see as your main responsibilities? what are your priorities with regard to housework?
  -what is the work that no one realizes you do?
  -what are the extras you do (are you an especially good cook, party thrower, taxi driver)? 

  
  

  
  

priming the engine: ask yourself this about work.

Give quick answers to the following and then jot down ideas for pages. If an item doesn’t seem relevant or even interesting, skip it.

• first job I ever held
• shortest job I ever held
• longest job I ever held
• hardest job I ever did
• easiest job I ever did
• work I wish would go away
• work I can’t get enough of
• work I never expected to do
• work I dream of one day doing
• pages about work I could do

think about it: quotations on work

• God sells us all things at the price of labor.  -Leonardo da Vinci
• Nothing got without pains but an ill name and long nails.  -Scottish Proverb
• We are closer to the ants than to the butterflies.  Very few people can endure much leisure.  -Gerald Brenan
• Without labor nothing prospers.  -Sophocles
• What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us.” –Julia Cameron
• Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.” –Albert Camus
• The harder I work the more I live.” –George Bernard Shaw
• Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results.” -James Allen
• Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard –Colin Powell
• If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. –Lane Kirkland
• I’m a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. –Thomas Jefferson
• Monday is a lame way to spend 1/7 of your life.  -Author Unknown
• If you have a job without any aggravations, you don’t have a job.  -Malcolm S. Forbes
• I’ve met a few people in my time who were enthusiastic about hard work.  And it was just my luck that all of them happened to be men I was working for at the time.  -Bill Gold
• Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.  -Confucius
• More men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies.  -Rudyard Kipling
• By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.  -Robert Frost
• When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

write it: journaling prompts

Complete these prompts for a current job and/or one in your past.

• The first person I speak to when I get to work is _____.
• My commute to work entails ______.
• I’d really love my work if it weren’t for _____.
• The item I use most in my work is _____.
• I got this job by _____.
• On my lunch break I _____.
• I’ve personalized my workspace with _____.
• One of the perks of my job is _____.
• My favorite part of my work is _____.
• It’s hard to explain this part of my work to others: _____.
• I worry about _____ at work.
• My favorite person at work is _____.
• I’m especially good at this aspect of my work: _____.