Personal Autobiography?

Q & A
#1

I know it’s a bit self-centred but I’m wanting to create an autobiography of my 40+yrs on this earth for personal/mental-health reasons.

Has anyone done one with Aeon before and if so got any tips?

Which template to use? Family History, Biography, Warfare(!), etc?

I started off wanting to do a Memoir about my drug experiences but want to expand it to my whole life to get a bigger picture and I’m getting bogged-down in “how to write autobiography/memoir” articles.

Does the jujutsu training in my 20s count as an Arc? Or does the job I worked during 08 financial crash count as an arc? Or maybe the best friend I had during the '10s is an arc? Or a Person entity?

I’m not sure how to organise my life? In terms of Arcs, Locations, etc.

Is this a question I should be asking on Scrivener or a book writing forum? If so, any ideas?

#2

I have not written a memoir, but are you writing to chronicle alone, or do you want to use your life to illustrate a theme, evolution, principle etc. Once you know what you want the book to use your life to show, then it should be easy for to decide which events in your life were crucial to the way you changed which illustrates your point.

#4

Hey @lokimems that sounds like a really interesting project, and something that would be beneficial for most of us to do at some point!

There are many different ways you could approach this, but here is one idea I came up with that could help you capture the various aspects of your life.

I used the Political Timeline template as a starting point (without the sample data included). It uses grouping to show its item types in separate rows on the timeline. It was easy to rename them to suit this project’s topic.

Starting template
Starting template1379×964 91.2 KB

Here’s what I changed them to:

  • Psyche: Any overriding feelings or motivations that drove certain parts of your life.
  • Education: Dates and assigned locations to show when and where you went to school.
  • Work: Same as above, but showing the various jobs you may have worked.
  • Life Events: Anything significant, with people and locations assigned as needed.
  • People: Could be used to show where important people have come into your life.

I decided not to show locations on the timeline, but they are accessible via the Sidebar and can be assigned to events etc to show where they happened.

The blank slate:

Screenshot 2026-02-13 at 12.22.02 PM
Screenshot 2026-02-13 at 12.22.02 PM1485×676 49.4 KB

Here’s how it looked after a bit of imaginative brainstorming:

Autobiography starter idea
Autobiography starter idea1484×1073 109 KB

You can download a copy of it here: Autobiography Starter.aeon (160.2 KB)

I could also send you a blank template of it if you like.

That’s just one idea, though. If you wanted to base yours on another starting template, you can find out more about how to customize item types in our new guides here:
https://www.aeontimeline.com/guides/customize-item-types

Hope that helps!

1 Like
#6

This is fantastic!! Thank you so much. :heart:

I started throwing stuff into the timeline based on emails and races (running) I’d done with medical challenges over the years and ended up with similar categories to what you’ve put here. But I’ve just added Education and People based on your template.

I highly recommend everyone does this - it’s been really useful, cathartic and therapeutic seeing my life mapped out over the years. Helps me see where I’ve been which is helping figure out where I want to go while putting the highs and lows into perspective!

Thanks!