Photos to Conquer? Start With Organization.

Being consistently caught up preserving your photos starts with organization.  If you have a lot of years’ worth of photos to catch up on, organizing them first is key.  How will you know where to start if you don’t know what you have?

I’ve held on to a great piece of advice I got a few years ago, which was that if any activity takes longer than 15 minutes, it should be on your calendar.  Otherwise, you never “find time” because you’re not making time.  

#1 Set Aside the Time

So the first must-do when organizing your photos is to set aside time for it.  Don't try to "find time" for your photos.  Make time.

Put it on your calendar.  Then honor yourself by keeping your appointment with yourself.  Treat it like you would a doctor's appointment or a haircut.  

If you're not sure how you might make time, consider the first Saturday of every month, or every Friday over lunchtime.

Or, what about this 10 Minutes Daily Plan?  Check it out and see if it might be a good fit for you:

#2 Sort Your Photos

Second, you may remember from {When Photo Overload Becomes Photo Overwhelm} that you really need to SORT your photos.  If you only have 30 photos of your grandfather, just keep them all.  That’s easy.  But if you have pictures of the ground or someone’s finger, if you have 45 pictures of decorating your Christmas tree, just choose your favorites.  

You need to choose a manageable amount of photos to preserve.  

(For tips on what to do with the extras, or tips on how to know what to keep, {click here}.)

You can find a more detailed guide to sorting (and organizing) in the Photo Organization and Preservation video (from a class I taught) below.

#3 Label as You Organize

Third, LABEL!  Everything needs to be labeled as you organize.  Make a note of dates–when was the picture taken?–and who is in it.  

A picture isn’t even worth anything if nobody knows who is in the picture.

Of course, pictures come in two flavors:  printed photos and digital photos.  Let's look at how to organize each.

ORGANIZING PRINTED PHOTOS

You can go one of two ways with photos that are already printed.  1- Put the photos in a scrapbook or album.  2- Digitize (scan the photos) to preserve them in a {digital photo-storybook or digital scrap pages}.  Either way, you'll need to get those printed photos organized first.

I suggest organizing physical (printed) photos in physical folders or envelopes.  Be sure you DATE the folders, though!  I suggest a large folder or envelope with the year, then smaller folders inside with months and years.  For example, label a large envelope “1994,” then label smaller envelopes inside “January 1994,” “February 1994,” and so on.  Put your photos in the smaller month envelopes.  Then you’ll know where to find everything since it’s organized chronologically.

Here’s what I did.  

My parents were really good at putting photos in albums and writing a little something next to them.  However, before my mom died, she gave me boxes of mementos that included quite a few photos.  As I prepared to make her {life storybook}, I found photos I’d never seen before and lots of mementos that needed to be scanned so I could make the digital book.  

I sat in the middle of the room and started organizing by decade.  Anything that happened in the 1970s went in one pile, the 60s in another, and the 50s in another, and so on.  After I organized by decade, I got 10 folders for each decade.  I put 1970 in one folder and marked it with a sticky note.  I put 1971 in another folder and did the same.  Pretty soon, I had all my mom’s 72 years’ worth organized!  I could find anything.

If you don't want to preserve the hard copy (printed) photos in a scrapbook or album but instead prefer to digitize them so you can preserve them in a {digitalbook or scrap pages}, you’ll need to first have them scanned.  

Digitizing photos is a great way to share them, and digital books or scrap pages are an easy way to get multiple copies without extra work.  Scanning services can be hired out, or you can do it yourself using several methods--find scanning information here.  

Once they’re scanned, you’re ready to organize your digitized photos.

UPDATE 2021:  For white glove service for your photo scanning, try the Forever Box!  Order a box, get it in the mail, fill it with photos, and send it back.  Your photos will be scanned and digitized, with white glove service, in a couple of weeks.

ORGANIZING DIGITAL PHOTOS

First things first.  If you don’t know how to get your photos from your camera or phone to your computer, I walk you through it in this 5-minute video.  The video is specific to a phone, but it's similar with a camera.  

Once you’ve gotten that far, you’re ready for the organizing part.

If you're a metadata guru, by all means:  Do your thing.  If you are a person with a camera who loves pictures, consider this simple approach (or watch the video below for a walk through all of this):

Digital photos add a little bit of an extra challenge because they’re files.  As such, they have file names, like IMG_0889.  Your computer will automatically alphabetize your files, which puts them in chronological order.  I actually don’t recommend you go in and change the name of your files.  (Unless you've already mastered a system where you can do that.  Most people struggle with it.) 

Sure, you could change IMG_0889 to firstdayofcollege.jpg, but the problem with that is that when you go back to find it you may not remember what you called it.  And triptothebeach.jpg might be from 1999 or from 2017.

However, if you get a new camera or have some photos from your phone and some from your camera, your files will not automatically be listed by date since they have different names.

My suggestion is to keep the original name of the file, boring as it is, unless you need to add a little something to keep it in chronological order.  For example, my father-in-law and my sister-in-law and I always share photos after we get together.  My father-in-law’s come to me as DSCN_1234, and my sister-in-law’s come to me as 100_1234.  So in order to use my photos and theirs and keep them all in order, I will rename them all to fall in line, like DSCN_1111, DSCN_1112, etc.  Sometimes I will add a little something on the end if I am running out of numbers, like DSCN_1113a, DSCN1113b, etc.

Hooray!  My Photos are Organized.  Now What?

After you’ve organized your photos, you’re ready to preserve them–you’re ready to save them in a tactile way that people can see, hold, and love.  This allows the photos to be interacted with, and that’s how memories are preserved and connections are made.  This is the only meaningful way to store a photo.

Just don’t forget that after you’re done patting yourself on the back and jumping up and down now that your photos are organized (which you should do!) you need to keep doing it.  Don’t let the photos you take this month and next month stay on your camera until 2027.

A wide variety of high-quality products from the heart can be created and published
{following these steps}.

There are a lot of options for preserving your photos in print (publishing them).  I’ll be a broken record again and just say that you MUST use a high-quality way to preserve your photos.  You don’t want your book or album falling apart in 5 years.  And you MUST find a memory-keeping method you actually enjoy doing.  It makes preserving photos and memories so much easier!

One of my favorite methods is a digital yearbook, which you can learn about at {this link}. Because of the way it’s organized, it just comes together very quickly.  Or if you'd like the creative flexibility of digital scrapbooking (creating using your computer, then printing your book professionally) better,{you might love my favorite digital scrapbooking method here}.  Both are printed using the highest quality in the industry.

Make this year your year!  Conquer those photos.  Calendar your plans.  Commit to yourself.  

It’s a gift of wellness of heart and soul, both to you and your loved ones. 

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This post was originally published at www.livegrowgive.org on January 26, 2018, by Jennifer Wise.  More #familyhistoryfriday posts can be found below by clicking the hashtag next to Labels.