How to make a map of your life

What is a map of your life?

It is a personal memory map that covers your whole life: the homes, schools, jobs and ordinary corners where things happened to you, each marked on a map with its story and its date. It is different from a travel map, which records where you have been, and from the "life map" used in coaching, which is a timeline of highs and lows with no geography.

What do you need before you start?

• About an hour for a first pass of 20 to 30 places.
• A list. Do the remembering on paper first, then put the places on the map.
• A tool: paper, Google My Maps or a memory map app. The comparison below will help you choose.

Step 1: List every home you've lived in

Homes are the spine of the map. Write them down in order with rough years: the house you were born into, each move, the dorm, the first place of your own. Most people have between five and fifteen. Everything else on the map hangs off these.

Step 2: Add the places you went every week

For each home, add the places that made up ordinary life there: the school, the job, the church or the gym, the grocery store, the friend's house, the park. These are the places where most of your life took place, and the ones a travel app would never record.

Step 3: Add the firsts and the turning points

Now the events. The first kiss, the first job, the first apartment. Where you were when you got the phone call, the offer or the news. Where you decided to leave, or to stay. One pin each, on the spot.

Step 4: Add a place for each person

Go through the people who mattered and ask where you picture them. A grandmother in her kitchen. A friend on a particular corner. A teacher in one classroom. This step finds the places you would otherwise forget, because you remember them as people.

Step 5: Add the small places only you would pin

The gap in the fence. The bench where you ate lunch for three years. The stretch of road where you always turned the radio up. These are what make it a map of your life and nobody else's. If you run dry, use the 100 memory prompts by place.

Step 6: Give each place a date

A year is enough. If you don't know the year, work it out from your age or the school grade you were in. Dates let you read the map in order later, as the story of a life.

Step 7: Write three sentences for each place

1. What happened there.
2. Who was with you.
3. One detail you can still see, hear or smell.

Resist writing more on the first pass. Thirty short entries are worth more than three long ones and a map you never finish.

Step 8: Show it to someone who was there

A sibling, a parent, an old friend. They will tell you what you got wrong and remind you of what you left out, and both make the map better.

Which tool should you use?

Paper is the fastest way to start and the classic version of the exercise. Draw the neighborhood from memory and label it. It doesn't need to be accurate.

Google My Maps is a capable free tool for custom maps, with up to 10 layers and 10,000 places per map. It was built for mapping places and data, so a long story sits in a description box, and there is no My Maps app for phones.

Here My Story is a free personal memory map built for this job. Each pin holds a story, a photo and a date, the same stories appear as a journal by year, and family members you invite can read the map but not change it. Its limits: one photo per pin, one map per account, and only the owner can add stories.

What mistakes do people make?

• Only pinning the big events. Weddings and graduations are already in the photo albums. The everyday places are the ones that get lost.
• Waiting until the facts are right. Put the pin near enough and say so. You can move it later.
• Starting with travel. Trips are easy to remember and well documented. Leave them until last.
• Doing it alone. Other people hold half your memories.

Common questions