We do not remember days, we remember moments.
-Cesare Pavese
How much do you remember from last year?
If you asked me what I did in 2015, I only remember creating the Learn to Animate Course, celebrating my daughter’s first birthday, and being part of a Fizzle.co Mastermind Group… Other than that, the whole year is a blur.
I imagine that your year was the same.
We remember finished projects, big events, and newspaper headlines.
Our lives move so fast. We focus on the future, enjoy the present, and quickly forget the past.
If you want to remember what has happened in your life, it only takes a story, a photo/video, or some reminder to bring the past to the front of your mind. These little things bring back memories of how we became who we are and what we have accomplished in our lives.
However, we don’t always have easy access to these reminders when we want to reminisce.
Until now.
In App View
The 1 Second A Day App
I heard about this wonderful little app while listening to the Ted Radio Hour last summer. I remember I was on a 3 hour (one way) drive to a magic show I was performing. Listening to the episode “Shifting Time” made me realize how much we forget about our day-to-day lives. In that episode, they talk about this cool app.
The One Second A Day app does what it sounds like. It helps you record one second each day.
The app sends you a reminder daily to use photos or images from your phone’s library, or you can create a new video in the app.
Review Your Year in 365 Seconds (6 minutes)
Other than the novelty of having a second of video each day, this is an excellent tool to remember and review your year.
Cesar Kuriyama is the creator of the 1 Second Everyday App, and he did a Ted Talk on the subject of using 1-second clips to remember one’s past.
Below is his TedTalk
Benefits of the App
Remembering Events in Your Life
As mentioned in the TedTalk above, we often have a hard time remembering random events without someone mentioning the story. It is also possible to have memories surface from photos and/or videos. That is what this app does. It gives you easy access to memories through short (1 second) clips.
Watching One Second a Day helps stir our memories of the year.
Some are important, and others are not. These include trips, fun happenings, celebration, sad experiences, news events, and overlooked daily activities. We are so busy with our future and sometimes the present, that is hard to get a grasp on what we have accomplished and how we spend our time. This app helps you relive your past in a quick and enjoyable video.
Make Something Happen
An unforeseen consequence of recording a second every day is that you start looking for things to do to fill that second. It doesn’t happen every day, but when I am out and about I might get an idea to try something new. Even if I have 100 excuses not to try it, knowing it will make a great second for my video increases my chances of doing it.
For example:
I was in Minnesota doing a series of shows throughout the southeastern part of the state. I was tired and by myself, which made me tempted to just sit around my Air B&B cabin. However, I knew this would be boring for the day’s second.I ended up going hiking for waterfalls which are plentiful in the area. The excuse to explore made the trip a lot more and had cool stories to tell people back home.
I get up in the morning looking for an adventure.
-George Foreman
Realize How Daily Activities Affect our Current Time.
This is the same reason why in 2016 I plan to do more reflections and forward views. These reflections are what some call monthly “Check-ins”.
Right now I am scheduling to do this every month. During the scheduled time, I reflect on what was accomplished and plan the month ahead. In the reflection part, having a video of every day will help me see the month on a day-to-day basis.
It is hard to envision how our daily activities add up to become our life’s body of work. This app helps visually show how that is possible.
Personal protest against recording everything.
In the Cesar Kuriyama’s Ted Talk (above), he makes a significant point about our recording culture.
When we are at an event that we are excited to be at, many of us have a compulsion to capture every moment with our smartphones or digital cameras. The result is that we are no longer in the moment, but instead seeing the event through a screen.
With limiting the recording to a second, we can capture the event without having to miss the experience. You know longer have to be the person with their phone out for an entire evening.
Note to self:
Record a second and go enjoy yourself.
See Our Bad Days
Since starting to use this app during the summer of 2015, it has become a sort of journal. Recording every day gives a more truthful look at one’s life. When I watch last year’s video, it reminds me of how great my life is. It also has days that were not so good.
My life is a series of awesome experiences with a smattering of bad events. Watching my seconds for 2015 is a reminder that I live a wonderful life with my perfect family doing cool stuff most days.
A Memorial for Your Life
I am writing this post a month exactly after my grandmother died. We were very close and seeing the photos during the funeral brought back a lot of memories. My grandma passed away at the age of 95. Which means, I only knew her when she was between the ages of 65 – 95… Seeing all those old photos reminded me how much I didn’t know about her.
Can you imagine if she had taken a second a day for half her life? Sure, it would be almost 5 hours long. But I would have loved to have seen it, paused it at times to relive memories, and shared the exciting parts with everyone.
If I start filming a second of video every day, I look forward to a time where I edit it down to the greatest hits for people to watch at my funeral… A little morbid, but it would be a great memorial for who I am and the things I’ve done in my life.
“Sharing tales of those we’ve lost is how we keep from really losing them.”
― Mitch Albom
My 3 Minutes of 2015
Quick Memories from this Video of 2015
- My family got scary sick for three days in November.
- Watching hot air balloons and Chinese lanterns.
- Watching a spider that lives in my studio wrap up a fly in his web.
- My daughter saying, “DaDa” for the first time.
- Seeing Jurassic World and Ant-Man in the theatre
(we rarely go to the theater). - I created a lot of animated videos in 2015
2015 was a great year!
