Easy Steps for Organizing Your Photos
- JULY 2021 -
The process of organizing your photos can seem overwhelming, but it's an important task to take on. Keeping your images organized and well preserved in a photo journal can save you time and reduce the risk of losing precious memories forever.
Since everyone is already stuck indoors and working on some type of decluttering project, it's the perfect time to bring out those old photos or transfer digital images from your devices to preserve them permanently. If you're ready to organize your pictures but don't know where to start, follow our tips to make it easy to get through your photos!
STAY CONSISTENT
If you've decided you're going to organize your pictures, you need to stay consistent to get through all your photos. Create a schedule that works around your life instead of overwhelming yourself by trying to accomplish everything in a day or weekend. Start with an hour or 30 minutes of organizing every day to get yourself started.
The more you organize your photos on a regular basis, the easier it will be to get through your photos. Allowing yourself a short or dedicated timeframe to go through your photos will make your organization process manageable, regardless of how many images you need to get through!
SET UP YOUR WORKSPACE
Before you can dive into your photo madness, you must have a dedicated space to work on your project. Using your sofa or dining room table might not be the best idea, especially because this project could take you longer than expected.
Instead, find a quiet, less-trafficked area of your space, whether that be a guest bedroom or office. Make sure you have supplies available to you, such as trash, rubber bands, post-its, sharpies, pens, and notebooks. This will allow you to have the right tools to separate your photos and mark them as necessary.
DIVIDE PHYSICAL PHOTOS BY AGE
If you have a massive box of physical photos to organize and go through, you'll need to develop a plan to ensure you're managing your pictures efficiently. While it might seem tempting to only sort according to significant events like Graduations or Birthdays, it can become challenging to remember what event or year it occurred. Plus, you'll need to remember the specific folder to find your event.
Alternately, you could split up your photos according to year, or age, whatever is easier for your process. You can use empty shoeboxes or even gallon Ziploc bags to divide up the images. Make sure that each pile is labeled so that you don't get confused if you walk away from your project for a few hours.
GET RID OF UNNECESSARY PHOTOS
Not every photo you find needs to be kept. If you don't love the picture, or it contains bad memories, consider letting it go. Other types of photos you don't need to keep include duplicates or blurred images. These extra photos will take up precious room in your photo albums and can be hard to categorize.
However, do not apply this rule to the negative images or rolls you might find. Retain those strips as they can be used to duplicate any photos that have gone missing.
START WITH NEWER PHOTOS
Instead of trying to find your oldest photos to start organizing, consider starting with your newer photos instead. Why? The number of images will likely be a smaller, more manageable task to get through. Plus, you can see your progress as you continue back through your photos.
Start by going through your computer or phone for the prior month's photos. Once you've finished, continue to the month before that. Take your scheduled time each day to continue going back until you're able to organize all your photos.
AUTOMATICALLY SAVE PHOTOS TO ALBUMS
Start to make a routine of automatically saving important pictures to albums on your phone or computer. Instead of waiting until the end of the month to find those important photos of your kid's birthday or anniversary, save your favorite ones right away. To do this, you can create a unique album on your computer or phone labeled with the relevant month or year.
When it's the end of the month or year, print out your favorite ones, and transfer them over to your favorite photo album to ensure they don't get lost. From there, you can delete out the old photos or create a new album to repeat the process.
DOUBLE CHECK YOUR PHOTOS
You may have all your photos organized at this point and feel ready to move into creating your photo albums. Before doing that, go through your collections one more time to ensure the order makes sense to you. This is the perfect time to reorganize your piles or make any last-minute cuts.
CREATE PHYSICAL PHOTO ALBUMS
It's easy to keep all your photos on your computer or phones. However, technology can fail, which can lead to people losing their digital memories. Instead, take the time to print out your organized photos and create your physical albums.
Create photo albums for specific events or cover the entire year. There are endless customizable options available to make your albums more personal to your events and life. You can even leave handwritten notes or memorable souvenirs like tickets, receipts, or playbills that accompanied those events. It's the perfect keepsake to reflect on the important moments of your life.
TAKE TIME TO ENJOY YOUR PHOTOGRAPHS
The best part of organizing your photos is allowing yourself to spend time reflecting and reliving your favorite memories. Sit down with family members or your significant other and go through your newly created photo albums. It's a great way to spend an evening talking about memories, swapping stories, and enjoying the past.
HAVE FUN WITH YOUR PHOTO JOURNAL
While these tips are meant to help you organize your photos, don't feel like it needs to be perfect to create a beautiful album. Have fun with your photo journal, and remember why you're organizing your photos in the first place. However your images end up, creating photo journals and organizing your photos will allow your memories to be preserved for decades to come. Check out our photo journals today to get started.