The First Step In Organizing Your Photos

We take massive amounts of photos. In his post on Stastica, Felix Richter says that in 2017, the world will snap a whopping 1.2 trillion photos! Step back from that number, and compound it over the number of years that we've reveled in smartphones and other technology...and then add all the Polaroids and older photos we snapped before.

We are buried in images. Reflect on your own experience, and think about how many digital pictures alone are lingering on your devices.

Beyond the digital, particularly if you're over 40, consider all those hard-copy photos you have at home. You’ve probably amassed them in various places; the basement, the attic, in boxes and in photo albums. Unless you're one of those special few with a killer organization system to keep them all together, easy-to-locate and in good condition, this post is a must-read.

A few years ago, I read Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up,” and found it phenomenally inspirational. I had to have a personal heart-to-heart with myself about my relationship with "stuff," and my desperate desire to simplify. My favorite takeaway from the book was the idea of bringing all of one thing together before beginning the process of organizing it.

In that spirit, the first step of organizing your hard-copy photos is to assess where they are in your home. You needn’t bring them all together in one place, but do take note of where they reside presently, and either take a photo or write a note to yourself about their location. Also, quickly scan the contents of boxes and albums to get clues as to when and who might be found in those stacks.

This is your FIRST step in organizing your hard-copy photos. Now, please join us to make sense of your photo mess for the first of a series of Sip and Sort Photo organizing workshops that will take place at The Great Frame Up. Find out details here and sign up! You'll learn tips and tricks to breathe life and connection into those old photos, and get them all organized in the process!