How do you eat an elephant?
3 min readPhoto organizationHow to sort photosOverwhelmed by photos
Photo organizing is like eating an elephant - one bite at a time! What are some of the small steps you can take to get your photos under control?
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
Photo organization can seem like an insurmountable task, but when taken "a bite at a time", it is quite doable! Here are a few "bites" that will make it easier and faster for you to organize your photo archive:
- Pick a location that will hold your photo archive. After much research, I have chosen FOREVER.com as my location - FOREVER's storage is safe, protected, and private. https://www.forever.com/ambassador/PhyllisO/storage
- First, upload the photos from your phone, tablet, and all the flash drives, CD's etc. Getting them into permanent, safe storage is a great first step.
- Next, designate a place in your home that will be the gathering place for all of your printed photos, movie reels, VHS (or other) tapes, etc. This could be the Guest room (or even the Guest bed!) or a table in your office or Dining Room. Don't do anything with them yet; just get them all in the same place.
- Remember to look everywhere! Desk drawers, closets, piano bench, junk drawer, garage; even in the places that you are SURE there are no photos or videos. You may be surprised what you find...and where!
- Once you've gotten everything in one place, start organizing. Take all the videos & film reels and gather them together. At this point, my suggestion would be to send them to FOREVER to be digitized (https://www.forever.com/ambassador/PhyllisO/digital-conversion). This will accomplish several things - these items will be removed from the big stack of stuff you are gathering, and they will be on their way to be digitized, so you don't need to worry about them degrading further or being lost in a pile of photos.
- While the videos and reels are being digitized, start organizing the photos into piles. You can divide them by year, or by person, or by similar events/holidays. There's no right way or wrong way - just what will work for you. Personally, I like to start with years first, then drill down to the other categories later. Don't linger over the photos and start reminiscing - you can do that later when the photos are in your FOREVER account!
- As you work, get rid of the duds and duplicates. Yes, I said "get rid of". You may be tempted to save a photo to send to Aunt Bea or your college roommate - if that's the case, put a sticky note on the back and put them in a pile called "Share with someone later". Don't let that derail you from your goal of organizing the rest!
- Be picky about what you keep - do you really need 36 pictures of the Swiss mountains from your vacation? Save the photos with people in them, and the ones of places that have meaning, then throw in a few mountain pictures for context.
- This sorting may take a while - don't be discouraged! They've been in a closet (under the bed, in the attic, etc.) for a long time! Whittle away at the pile a bit at a time and celebrate your accomplishment.
- Once you are done sorting (no matter how long that takes) you are ready to do another FOREVER box (or two, or three...).
- Once all of the photos and videos are safe in your FOREVER account, you can tweak the organization however you want...or just leave them "as is" and know that they are safe & protected.
Want to get started? Let me know and we can work together to get this project done for you. You'll feel so great when it's done and you'll be able to enjoy the photos and memories again.
Until next time,
