Photos and photo albums are so easy to get behind. The only way to keep yourself from worrying about them is creating a system and getting them organized.
Step 1.
Consolidate all photos into one location.
Do you have photos on your laptop, USB drive, Memory cards, desktop and iPhone? The first step is to consolidate them into one place.
Create a folder on your computer and copy them all.…..It’s a great way to finally clean out all your devices too!
Step 2.
Group all photos by year and then by month.
Once all your photos are in one place, the first step is to start grouping them by year.
After the photos are grouped by year, start consolidating them into months. Manually drag the months into order for now because sometimes the dates are messed up on the photo files. The biggest trick? GO ONE MONTH AT A TIME…..maybe pick a few weeks where you tackle one month at a time every morning or once a week after the kids go to bed.
Step 3.
Go through each month of photos and keep only the best ones.
Ok, I know it’s hard…..but you don’t really need 40 photos of the “almost identical” pose….or 10 photos of
your kid feeding the same duck. I force myself to go through each month of photos and delete out all the sub-par photos. Then I take a few days off and make myself go BACK through them again. AND….remember…..as sad as it is….no one will care that you took 20 photos of your pretty bushes or your new kitchen island…..or the architecture in Italy. Make sure the majority of your personal photos have “people” in them.
The less photos you have…the more you will appreciate them!
Step 4.
Organize your Photo Album and Hard copies.
Organize your Photo Albums and hard copies into cardstock folders. Store by year until you are ready to convert them to Digital.
Step 5.
Consider digital albums.
If you like the look of physical albums that you can flip through consider making a yearly digital photobook.
A great Christmas gift for Grandparents.
Step 6.
Backup your photos to DVD/CD and or External Hard Drive.
Once they are all uploaded, backup those folders up to a 4G DVD. Before removing them from your desktop export them to a external hard drive. You now have two different backups…..just in case one gets damaged.
Hope this helped!
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