The Foolproof Way to Write Your Life Story

Write Your Life Story for Posterity

By Maureen Santini © Copyright 2017-2025. All Rights Reserved.

Magnifying glass highlights the message: “Do it NOW. Sometimes LATER becomes NEVER.”

The simplest way to write your life story is one decade at a time. Start with the day you were born and write everything you recall. Keep going from there.

This is the essence of the Decade-by-Decade Method. It is a nearly effortless way to capture the facts and details of your life in short order.

How to Write Your Life Story

If you are 60 years old and write about one decade each week, you will be done in six weeks. Add a chapter to sum it all up and a chapter to preserve your knowledge about family history.

Why bother to write if you aren’t rich or famous?

Write because your life story is your legacy, because you alone know the entire story, and because the accumulation of your lifestyle, knowledge and experiences will be lost to the ages if you don’t. 

The Decade-by-Decade Method is a series of 11 newsletters, each designed to accumulate basic information by triggering your memory. These newsletters guide you from start to finish.

The following excerpts provide a quick summary of the theme of each newsletter.

Your First Decade – Ages 0 to 9

The first-decade newsletter walks you through how to begin writing your personal history. Start with the day you were born, a memory trigger that unleashes your recollections.

Here’s an excerpt: “Begin by writing down everything you know about the day you were born: your full name at birth, the name of the hospital or birthplace, the date and time of birth, the city and state, the names of your parents.

“Fill in basic blanks: birth weight, the color of hair and eyes, birthmarks, nationality, citizenship, parents’ citizenship, birth order, names and ages of siblings, religion, street address, and type of residence.”

From there, you proceed to preschool, kindergarten, grades one through four, and family life.

Most of you have this information at your fingertips. You will quickly amass many pages.

Your Second Decade – Ages 10 to 19

In most cases, your second decade began around fifth grade and ended after high school. You will again record as much as you recall about your life during that time using the prompts in the second-decade newsletter as a guide.

Always start with basic facts such as your home address during the decade, the members of your household, names of your schools, important teachers, classmates, activities, and events.

Your Third Decade – Ages 20 to 29

For most, the third decade is a time of profound change. You may have attended college or vocational school. You may have served in the military, worked at a variety of jobs, or begun a career. In many cases, these were times of major decision-making. Write everything you recall using the detailed prompts to guide you.

Your Fourth Decade – Ages 30 to 39

The fourth decade can be a time of marriage, child-raising and settling into a job. Others continue trying out a variety of jobs and seeking their purpose. Still others shed carefree lifestyles of youth and take on various personal responsibilities. Write in depth about your thirties by answering the detailed questions in the fourth-decade newletter.

Your Fifth Decade – Ages 40 to 49

Many people remember their forties as a time of balancing multiple interests, such as finances, teenagers, aging parents, and work-life balance.

Using the prompts in the fifth-decade newsletter as a guide, write about the challenges and rewards you confronted in these and other areas during this decade. Also describe major events and activities involving you and your spouse, children, parents, siblings, grandparents, and others.

Your Sixth Decade – Ages 50 to 59

Your fifties, in many cases, were a continuation of fulfilling responsibilities incurred in earlier decades. But people also were coping with looming empty nests, work changes, retirement planning, and multi-generational care giving.

Describe your life during this decade using the sixth-decade newsletter as a guide. Write about yourself and your life but also your way of life. Future readers may be living in quite different times.

Your Seventh Decade – Ages 60 to 69

If you retired, write about the ways your life changed and how you transitioned to a different lifestyle. The seventh-decade newsletter prompts you to mention if you began working part-time, started traveling, switched to a different field, started volunteer work, spent more time with grandchildren, or simply found time to relax and enjoy a more leisurely pace of life.

Your Eighth Decade – Ages 70 to 79

At this point, most people are retired though a growing number are still working. The eighth decade often represents a turning point in terms of lifestyle, activities, outlook and even happiness.

Using the eighth-decade newsletter as a guide, write about places you frequented, such as churches, restaurants, museums, and parks. Describe your social life, including activities with friends and family members. Name the people you spent the most time with.

Your Ninth Decade and Beyond – Ages 80+

For the sake of convenience, all ages after 80 are addressed in the ninth-decade newsletter. Write about your eighties as in previous decades.

If you are in your nineties or beyond, write down the same categories of information about those years. At this point, there is no need to wait until the end of a decade. You can always update the information in the future.

Lifestyle, beliefs, activities, health, and relationships can change from decade to decade – often drastically. Write about the highlights of these decades, including major activities and people you spent time with frequently, as well as your overall health and well-being.

Your Family History

Knowledge about individuals can vanish quickly without a concerted effort to preserve it. Once information is lost, it is often lost permanently, as many families tragically discover.

A large part of your library of knowledge relates to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Chances are few of them wrote about their lives. Take this opportunity to preserve the information you possess about members of your family tree. You know more than you think. The family history newsletter provides a structure to write about your family.

Summary of Your Life Story

Proceed to the summary chapter when you’ve “aged out” of the decade posts. If you are in your 50s, for example, you will “age out” after writing about your sixth decade.

Write the “summing up” chapter when you’ve finished the decade chapters and the family history chapter. You can always update in the future.

Simple, Fast, Foolproof

As this newsletter demonstrates, writing your life story is easily do-able. Simply use the specific newsletters to guide you. This is how you pass down the basic facts of your life and times to future generations.

Benefits of Writing Your Story

Few activities create more lasting value for yourself and future generations than writing your life story for posterity. Many studies have proven that writing your life story benefits the writer as well as their family.

Write solo or encourage your friends and family members to join you.

Have you started writing yet?

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Maureen Santini is a writer, PR strategist, and former journalist whose goal is to prevent the life stories of millions from ending up in the graveyard.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, click “like” to encourage others to write their stories. Testimonials are especially welcome.