4 Good Reasons to Organize Your Photos and Tips to Help

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I was swishing through my FB feed the other day, procrastinating by way of a little rapid-fire content, when up popped some images from my past. It was an unexpected jostle of history at a time I was looking for a more mindless distraction.

Fortunately, the unexpected images brought up good memories. But I understand why some people can find the surprise reminders of their earlier posts a little off-putting, I mean, some of us (me) cringe a little at some of our old posts, and never want to go back to them at all.

The poke of old photos can feel like a sideswipe, an uninvited visual reminiscence. And if the images elicit unwelcome memories, well, that is the blow.

But whether you like the FB feature that dredges up images of your past or not, it’s a reminder of the many photos that we capture, and how they chronicle our lives.

Ever since the invention of cameras in the early 1800s, we’ve been documenting our stories. At first, photographers captured significant life milestones such as weddings and group family shots. Later, when everyone held cameras, candid pictures of life came into focus.

A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away

Now with the digital age, we use photographs to document every aspect of how we spend our time, from shopping to what we’re having for lunch. Chances are, even if you only pull out your phone to click occasionally, you’re still digitally buried in jpegs.

This deluge of images underscores the quandary: what to do with them all, especially when you add in all the hard copies of pictures we collect. If you’ve lived more than a few decades, it’s likely you have old-fashioned printed photos collecting dust somewhere.

At some point, you’ll want to review all of these pictures, even the ones that make you sad. Organizing your photos can take time and planning, but the payoffs are many.

Here we highlight 4 reasons to create a photo archive system and provide tips to bring order to both digital and hardcopy pictures.

The Benefits of Organizing Your Photos

It happens that, as I write this post, I’m in the process of scanning a client’s hardcopy photos to create a digital database. With more than a thousand images in this project, it still only scratches the surface of the client’s overall load of photos.

As I review the client’s images, I’m reminded of the many shared experiences—class photos, baptisms, weddings, athletic events, and the slew of casual moments. So much to tackle, why go to all the work of creating a photo organizing system? Here are four reasons, along with helpful tips, to help.

1. Find your old photos easily. You went to the effort to document your life in photos. You took pictures of your vacations and countless family events so that you could always remember those good times.

 But if your photos are in disarray, you’ll be digging to find just the right ones. By tagging, labeling, and filing your photos, you will be able to call them up when you have the need or desire to retrieve them.

Photo software does a lot of the heavy lifting to ordering the digital archives that we store on our computers and phones. Facial recognition, dates, events, and numerical file identifiers help us sort and find pictures.

Use these identifiers as the beginning of creating your digital archive system and then extend it to those old hardcopy images. Go with basics such as date, place, who, and where to best sort images.

TIP: Create just one database for your images.

At some point, the photos on your multiple devices, plus older photos that are not digitized, will need to find a home together to review and enjoy them. By creating a single place to house your images and video – an external hard drive or cloud storage – you’ll be able to access them and find what you want easily.

There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes. Abraham Lincoln

2.       Review your past for themes. Your photos provide you the opportunity to look back at your life and consider important themes that emerge. By examining your past pictures, you can note the overarching trends that have driven you—the people, and the ways you’ve spent your time. 

TIP: Organize your photos by themes or people.

Your photo software can assist in sorting your photos into themes such as holidays and vacations. You can also sort by the significant people featured in your images. Use these to tag and label file names for pictures.

3.       Plan for your future. Your photos offer you a life timeline. You see your life through what you’ve done, what you’ve valued, and the people you’ve known. Celebrate the positives, but also take an opportunity to consider what you’d like to do going forward. Check for cause and effect of past behaviors and if those serve you. What would you repeat? What would you change now? How does our past reflect what you want in your future?

TIP: Create an image timeline with an outline for your future.

Create a visual guide that includes positive points in your past through images and then consider what you’d like to see in your future. Create a vision board curated with your own photos and then dramatize yourself in the future with things you’d like to accomplish. Nothing is so powerful as visual reminders to solidify your goals.

4.       Connect with others. We share a lot of photos on social media feeds with our masses of friends and acquaintances, but when was the last time you sent an image to a specific friend or family member? Once you find nuggets of memories in your photos, take it to the next step and share those pictures with your significant other. Strike up a conversation. Send a text or better yet, print and send photos in snail mail as a gift!

TIP: Make it a point to reach out with the power of photos.

Photo books are so easy to put together with print on demand. Take some of your favorite memories with others and turn them into a printed book to share. Set aside time to sit and look at the book together and relish the conversation in person.  

Postscript: When things seem out of control like it feels these days, acting where we have control is a comfort. Cleaning up your stuff is within your power! If you need help getting going on organizing your home check out Get Organized Gal’s courses for support.

I used her course to organize my office, and it is in pretty good shape these days. Success in one space has lead to cleaning channels to other rooms and photos as well. Check out he courses here. 

Sherry and Alexandra Borzo together in Lima, Peru

Sherry is the founder of Storied Gifts a personal publishing service of family and company histories. She and her team help clients curate and craft their stories into books. When not writing or interviewing, Sherry spends loads of time with her grandchildren and lives in Des Moines, Iowa.

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