Scrapbooking.

There’s something truly wonderful about that concept, isn’t there?

The idea of gorgeous volumes, one for each major family event (or year), standing spine-to-spine on a shelf in the living room for all to enjoy is simply wonderful to imagine. Too bad reality gets in the way of those memory-curating fantasies, right? Most people are months, if not years, behind where they think they should be when it comes to organizing their pictures and mementos of good times spent with family and friends. One woman we spoke with recently figured she’s at least 6 years behind and many more still hadn’t sorted through and organized the thousand or so pictures they snapped on their last family trip.

If you’re behind, don’t despair. We’ve put together a step-by-step guide for getting your memories organized.

Start Small

We humans will always put off projects we think will be painful as long as the downside of avoiding the task isn’t more painful. In the case of organizing photos, digital or analog, the downside is too vague to cause us any real agita. And so – we keep putting off dealing with it.

By starting off with a small photo project, you will all get an early “win” that will motivate you to keep on keeping on through the more boring, but essential organizational tasks. In addition, simply going through the process of creating a photo project (like putting together an album or gallery wall) actually forces you to organize and classify photos you have accumulated. So, in a way, a small photo project actually serves as a Jedi mind trick you can play on yourself so that you get a start on the organizational work you don’t think you want to do.

Step Away from the “Inspiration”

While gazing at inspiring layouts and ideas in magazines and online can be fun, it can also be paralyzing. Social scientists who study how we make decisions have found that having too many options actually keeps people from choosing a path forward. In addition to what those social scientists have found, we have seen too many well-intentioned people become so intimidated (i.e. “I wish I could make my album look like that, but I wouldn’t even know where to start.”) that they give up before they even start.
Bottom line: as long as you are looking at what others have done for inspiration on how to create a “perfect” album, you aren’t really making any progress.

Pick a Preferred Medium

Some people prefer to see their memories organized in photo books, others love actual photo albums or scrapbooks with physical prints, and still others want digital albums that showcase their memories in real time on digital frames. How you choose to organize and display your memories doesn’t matter; that you do it does.

It’s much easier to make headway when you pick one medium to work within. As you gain experience with it, the time and effort it takes to create additional projects will diminish. So, for example, the more photo books you design, the more quickly and easily you will be able to create them in the future, and the more likely you will be to make one each time you upload photos from a major event. It’s a virtuous circle that keeps you a step ahead of the photo chaos.

Establish a Habit

Organizing photos will require much less time and effort if you just take some simple steps every time you upload or print photos. Step one: label what you are uploading or printing with the date and the name of the event the photos are related to. Step two: delete any duplicate or unfortunate photos that aren’t worth keeping around. Step three: merge any photos you have just printed or uploaded into bigger organizational buckets as it makes sense. For example, you may have a folder for each year, with sub-folders for each major event, such as a birthday party.

All in, it takes about five minutes to do that as you upload or print. But if you wait until you have to do the same for thousands of photos, it becomes a monster.

Use Tools That Make the Project Easier

Sometimes in our quest to do things “right” we make it harder on ourselves than it needs to be. Look for tools that can help you simplify your photo projects in any way. For example, if you’re trying to dig out from under an avalanche of photos, try using a service like the one offered by 1000Memories.com, which scans up to 600 photos for you and uploads them into a virtual album. If you just want to display photos physically, get a simple album with plastic sleeves so you don’t have to think too hard about what goes where. If you store your photos digitally, make the switch to photo books as you can skip the steps of printing photos and putting them into albums.

Are your photos organized? How do you prefer to keep your memories – in photo books, in photo albums with actual prints, or in virtual frames?

If you want to go from this:

To this…

The May Challenge is for you!

In this challenge, we’ll be helping you tame the digital and physical photo clutter you’ve been meaning to get to but just haven’t quite found the time to deal with. As with all of the challenges, we’ve figured out a way to take a BIG task and break it down into a series of small steps that you can take on a daily basis without turning your regular life upside down.

Sign up for the May Challenge here.

So many photos, so little time.

We all feel guilty that we’re behind the eight ball when it comes to organizing the family photos. All these important events we took the time to attend and record, and yet the photos languish in our digital cameras, on internet storage sites, or in envelopes and boxes. Plus, once you’ve fallen behind, it seems impossible, and embarrassing, to catch up. (It’s hard to admit you still haven’t organized wedding photos when it’s your ten-year anniversary.) One problem stems from the desire to organize photos thoughtfully and perfectly, and since there never seems to be time to dedicate to such an in-depth task, we often never get started. What can you do to take on years and years of photos, when you don’t have hours and hours to devote?

Alicia on ‘Working Backwards’

‘One big question looms over the task of organizing photos. Where do I start? Or, more precisely, when do I start? We’ve found that time tends to be an excellent filter as far as weeding out the photos you don’t really need to put in albums. (Sure, that series of pictures of your sister fitting 20 grapes in her mouth was funny 5 years ago, but maybe you only need one to remember the event.) Start with the oldest event and work to the present, making sure to leave a few spaces for any pictures that may pop up later in the process.’

Sarah on ‘Memory Lane’

‘One of the bonuses of organizing your photos after having delayed it for a while, is that it gives you a chance to take a trip down memory lane. Make it a fun family event, where each member of the family is in charge of putting pictures in order for different events. Not only will things get done much quicker, it gives everyone a chance to laugh together, shake their heads in disbelief together, and most importantly, point out the terrible choices in fashion and hairstyles together.’

Here are a few picture perfect ways to start organizing your photos.

#1. Photo Boxes
Even if they’re not in albums, an easy way to start the process of organizing your photos is to create boxes for different vacations, holidays, school years, etc. As different events happen, and you get more photos, just make another box and set it aside. That way they’re at the ready when you do want to make an album.

#2. Online sites
Online sites like Kodakgallery.com and snapfish.com are great and easy to use. Not only does it make it easy to share photos, but you can also access pictures your friends and family took that you may have missed. It’s just as easy, however, to forget to make prints from these sites for your albums. Try to put an hour on your calendar one month from now, and take that time to go through and organize and print some of your favorites. There’s something about a printed photo that seems more special than just looking at it on a screen.

#3. The Perfect Gift
When you’re in the process of putting pictures into photo albums, you always come across photos that remind you of certain friends or family that you either miss, or haven’t talked to in a while. Take this opportunity to take some pictures that otherwise may not have made it into your album and send them to someone special. Whether it’s a duplicate photo at your wedding for a bridesmaid, or an extra picture of your kids for a faraway aunt, every picture you send will bring someone an unexpected smile when they go to open their mail.

It’s holiday time and, if you’re like me, it’s a time when your digital camera will be snapping continuously. Especially, with photos of people, the only way to get natural, inspiring pictures is to keep the shutter clicking.

And the beauty of digital cameras is that it doesn’t cost any extra to take more shots. In fact, I like to think I’m getting my money’s worth from my camera if I shoot more.

But, in the pursuit of great pictures, the achilles heel of digital photographers can be the computer.

As a nature and lifestyle photographer, I shoot hundreds, even thousands of photos every week. What I don’t want is for my computer to become a dumping ground of unorganized image files that may get lost and never even looked at!

So what is the solution?

Be ruthless in your editing. That’s right, as free-handed as you were clicking the shutter, you can easily be just as free-handed hitting the delete key when you’re editing.

Last week I did a family photo session where I took about 900 shots, but I only delivered 89 pictures. At some weddings, I have taken as many as 5000 images in order to deliver about 1000.

Here’s how I get a big number of shots down to the best few:

1. As you go through your pictures for the first time, pick out the ones that appeal to you. Most of the pictures will be average, or less than average, quality. If they don’t really do something for you, don’t include them in your keepers pile. By selecting only the pictures that appeal to you, you won’t be rejecting your bad shots–just choosing your favorites. It goes a lot faster this way too! In just a few minutes you can go through all of your pictures.

2. Choose the best one image of any sequences, or repeats, from the shoot. When you’re taking pictures, it’s good to take lots of variations, sometimes only fractions of a second apart, so that you get the best facial expressions. But, when you’re editing, choose the one expression that captures the feeling best. It may be hard to decide between two (or twenty) similar shots, but leaving them both (or all) in is not good practice, and is a hinderance to finding your best shots later. When you’re done editing, you want each picture to say something different–you don’t want to bore your viewers with lots of repeats.

3. Go through your pictures once to choose your keepers, and then go through your keepers one more time, to clean up a little more. Two passes, and you’re done!

4. Delete anything that is not in your keepers pile. That’s right, actually erase them from your hard drive! It may sound extreme, but when you do it a few times, it gives a wonderful feeling of freedom. It’s like emptying the garbage. Why spend all that time editing if you keep all your trash too? Just do it and forget about it. Now you have room for the next photo session. No more holding on to the would-have-beens. You’re free to move forward.

Check in next time to learn how to name your pictures, and how to organize your picture folders…

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