9 Reasons You Aren’t Organizing Your Photos and 5 Reasons You Should
When you hear the word organizing, what do you think of? Probably something like decluttering your closet or cleaning out the filing cabinet.
But what about organizing your photos? They are your family’s precious memories and deserve to be organized too.
So here’s a question for you – Which is more precious to you and your family, a tidy pantry or the photos from your family’s first trip to Disney World? In the long run, I’m guessing the photos mean more.
But for some reason, taking the time to deal with your photos never rises to the top of the important things that need to get done. You know you should but things get in the way.
Don’t worry; you are not alone. We’ve all been there, even photo organizers like me. Life gets in the way, even though you know your family’s memory collection is important. But in the blink of an eye, your precious family photos can be gone, and your heart will be broken.
What is your excuse?
When it comes to reasons for not organizing your photos, as a photo organizer, I have heard it all.
Do any of these sound familiar?
- Life has gotten in the way.
- I don’t know where to start.
- I don’t know what I need to do.
- It’s going to take forever.
- I get overwhelmed and walk away.
- I took a detour down memory lane and never came back.
- It’s going to be too expensive.
- I’m just too busy.
- It’s not really all that important, is it?
Why should you organize your photos?
Why should you even undertake this crazy task of organizing your photos? Your pictures are safe and happy in the back of the closet, right? Wrong!
Here are my top 5 reasons why you need to organize your photos:
1. You can find the picture you are looking for whenever you want to.
Whether it’s your daughter’s high school graduation and you need to find five preschool pictures for her yearbook, or you need to find your grandparent’s wedding portrait for their 75th anniversary celebration, it’s a great feeling when you can put your hands on specific photos whenever you want.
2. You can safeguard and preserve your precious family photos and the stories behind them for future generations.
Your photo collection is your legacy. Remember how overwhelmed you were when you inherited your grandparents’ photos? Taking the time to organize your photos and capture the stories behind them now is a gift you give your children and grandchildren and their children.
3. You can protect your pictures from potential damage and destruction.
As much as we don’t want to think about a disaster happening to us, it can happen in the blink of an eye. Whether it’s a tornado, a robbery, or a busted water heater, your photos (digital and printed) are vulnerable. Having them organized and backed up creates a way to help you recover if and when disaster strikes.
4. You can reclaim the space throughout your home.
Where have you stashed all of those random envelopes of photos, baggies of SD cards and USB sticks, and old computers? Gathering all your photos into one place and transforming them into a cohesive collection can give you a sense of relief and free up room in your home. The consolidation of all your photos will definitely take up a smaller footprint in your home, your computer, and in your life.
5. It will make you happy.
Really, do you need another reason?
You are not alone in your struggle to find the time, energy, motivation, or whatever it is that you need to start organizing your photos. Sometimes you just have to get started.
What is holding you back from organizing your photos?
Do you need help organizing and safeguarding your family’s precious photos and memories? Don’t worry; we’ve got you. Contact us at [email protected] today to find out how to get started.
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My excuse is that the family photos (once they went digital) became my husband’s purview. They are all on his computer, and he was the one taking them and deciding how to organize them. I suspect they are kind of a mess, but he doesn’t want me in his space or interfering with his system. He also doesn’t have the time himself to deal with it. Sort of a conundrum…
I find that labeling the digital files is the hardest thing to remember for me when I download it. So, instead, I create a folder and name it the event with the date and store it that way. It would be great to do this all the time but I only have time to do it once a quarter.
LIfe got a bit more complicated when we went digital. On the one hand, the images don’t take up any physical space. But on the other hand, they are stored in different places (my computer and my husband’s.) So we each have our collections. Mostly, though, I can find what I need when I need it. I think one of the things I need to do is to take some of the files off of my desktop. Even though they are backed up in the cloud and on an external drive, they are taking up a lot of space on my computer. That’s a project for “one day.”
My excuse is #4, but I know I’ll enjoy it, so I need to break it down into manageable tasks and get started!
I just did a presentation for a local mom’s club and disorganized photos and tons of photos stuck on cell phones was a big theme. I don’t do photo organizing, but I could see how this new direction in your business would be quite profitable! I have to admit my own mantra is less is more when it comes to photos. I take a few key shots at most events/special occasions that way I don’t get overwhelmed with managing them.
I have been wanting to print some photos forever. I just put the Walmart photo app on my phone and I think it’s easy to get pics off Facebook. I have other photos that I am not sure how to get off the computer. I have an old very slow computer with pics. Definitely procrastinating as it seems too challenging. Ugh!!
This process can be overwhelming! Once a good system is in place, it is easier to maintain. I still remember the panic I felt 15 years ago when my daughter needed photos of what she did over the summer. The images were trapped on the digital camera and the battery needed to be charged before we could even look at them! And of course it was 8 pm and she needed them the next morning. I love being able to easily find and share photos of our family memories!
I found a battery charger at Best Buy recently that that my battery in one hour. That’s so much better than the charger that came with my camera.
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Great post! Re: that final excuse, photos have value in a way that almost nothing else in our our lives do. They are the tangible embodiment of our (failing) memories and proof of our legacies. While there’s sometimes joy in the serendipity of coming across a photo you didn’t even know you had, the vast majority of time, having photos organized allows you to recapture what was otherwise lost. Just a few weekends ago, my mother and sister and I debated whether my grandparents had a pool (they did not) in the only home I recall them ever living in. My mother is 30 years older than I am, my sister eleven years older. They could only remember the homes of my grandparents from many years before I came into the world. But I was able to pull out the (admittedly blurry, very 1960s/1970s) pictured and text them, allowing old memories to resurface.
I’ll admit, the effort that goes into digitizing photos (and honestly, digital photos themselves) keeps much of the initial delight at bay. Flipping through an album, sifting through loose photos — the tactile as well as visual joy just can’t be matched by swiping through an album on a glass screen. We MUST preserve photos digitally, and we must employ organized labels and structure, but I hope we’ll never get entirely away from prints and their unexpected, serendipitous joys.
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