Now that you’ve downsized your photos, it’s time to organize them. There are several ways to do this, so select the one that is most appealing to you and easiest to maintain.
Paper photos:
Albums:
There are a number of different photo albums available, so you’re able to choose whichever style works best for you.
Boxes:
This is possibly the easiest way to store photos and can be made of wood, cardboard, fabric or plastic. You can divide the photos according to date, occasion, person, etc.
Scrapbooks:
For your best, favorite photos, you may want to scrapbook them. If you’re creative with the page layout, scrapbooks don’t hold many pictures but they can be beautiful displays of your memories.
Ensure whichever method you choose, that the materials are acid-free so the photos aren’t damaged over time.
Digital photos:
Because these take so little space, the temptation is to keep every one. But, as we discussed last time, this is not the best idea.
The remaining very best ones can be organized by date, occasion, or person. My concern with filing by date only is that if you don’t remember that a specific event happened on that date, you’ll have a difficult time finding what you’re looking for.
One more way to protect your valuable photos is to copy them onto a flash drive or CD and keep this in your safety deposit box. Should you have a computer melt-down, your photos will still be safe.
I like filing digital photos by occasion. This way the date appears on the file too and I never have to search through years of date only files.
Once all your pictures are clearly filed, you can enjoy them at any time and reminisce about the events and people therein.
Commit today to organize your photo collection and get started. Plan a regular session until the project is complete. You may actually enjoy looking at them more once your collection is not so overwhelming.
© Moreen Torpy
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Moreen Torpy is the De-Clutter Coach, a Trained Professional Organizer, Author, and Speaker. Her new book is Going Forward: Downsizing, Moving and Settling In. See www.goforwarddownsize.com for more about the book, and www.decluttercoach.ca to learn about her organizing services.
