Posted on Dec 16, 2013

Contents of an "I Love Me Book"

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One of the biggest things my former instructors and mentors have encouraged me to do is to build an "I Love Me Book." While I have one that does the job of creating a back up for all of my documents (ORB, Orders, Certificates, etc.) I was wondering in the community what everyone else would recommend to keep inside of the book so I can build one and give others a "guideline" to help build theirs.

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I Love Me Book

Posted >1 y ago

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Responses: 26

SFC (Join to see)

Posted >1 y ago

I don't have an actual book, (it's 2013!) I keep digital PDF (or XFDL) copies of all of my pertinent data. You can start by downloading your OMPF from iPERMS. It's always good to have that in case something randomly disappears out of it someday. (It happens more than you think.) It should have all records of your NCOERs, Awards, SGLI/SGLVs, DD93s, 1059s, etc. I also have archival copies of my APFTs, range cards, SF86 (eQip) and every current military training cert I have. I keep all of these documents in the share drive at work and upload them to my Google Drive when I get the chance. That way I can always access everything.

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SSG (Join to see)

>1 y

SFC, here's my question, and this might have bee asked already. Yes we are in a "digital world" and equipment does fail. Now what do you do? How do YOU retrieve your digital documents? If you don’t have them backed up on paper you might be failing yourself. Please don’t take this in the wrong way, you have given great information but let Soldiers know, a back-up plan is have it on paper as well.

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SFC (Join to see)

>1 y

SSG Brown, that is a great point to consider. I have several backups of these documents in he cloud and on servers and in iBooks on my iPad. If you mean, what would I do if I had no digital access? Well I would probably be screwed! :)

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SFC (Join to see)

>1 y

SFC Gates,

I still maintain all of my original awards, promotion certificates, re-enlistments, resident-course certifications, and pretty much anything that was given to me in heavy card-stock and/or in a green or blue presentation folder. As for everything else, I wouldn't say I have thrown it away but I definitely don't inventory my paper trail. Filing cabinets were the bane of my existence as the Training NCO so I transformed our company into a digital masterpiece, only printing/maintaining paper documents as needed, and then applied the same practices to my personal files. Ctrl+F is a beautiful thing.

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COL Vincent Stoneking

10 y

Like SFC Watkins,

I have everything stored digitally. At least 3 discrete copies of everything - one on my main computer, one on a thumb drive, and one on my backup computer. I am getting ready to create a 4th copy and have it saved on a friend's computer (He's a bigger tech geek than me, so this involves a RAID array and regular saved backups).

Also like SFC Watkins, I have kept everything that was a "presentation" or has an ink signature in physical form. However, I have actively shredded most everything else. I really don't need file cabinet space for my ROTC contract, my ASVAB scores, my SMP contract, my TA statements of understanding, 20+ years of LES's, etc.

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SFC Michael Hasbun

Posted >1 y ago

In a word? EVERYTHING! My love me book has every award, certificate, contract, PCS order, deployment order, redeployment order, closed out hand reciept, pretty much everything over close to fifteen years of service. It's pretty massive, but good luck catching me unprepared. Oh, and I have a digital back up, on hard drive, AKO files, and email database.

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MSG Phil Herndon

Posted >1 y ago

A good binder to keep your original documents in is all you need. If it is in your OMPF, you don't necessarily need to keep another copy, but all of the original source files in your career should go in there. I keep original award certs, original training certs, and the stuff that says "I Love Me". My NCOERs, counselings and copies of papers that I have mostly just clutter it up, when those docs are available online.

Contents of an "I Love Me Book"

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