OH: Week 28

Organize Your Home: Week Twenty-Eight

Organize Photos

Whoa... I take A LOT of photos. And usually take multiple shots of one moment. This means I have tons of duplicates and because of my MASSIVE camera card I haven't taken any photos off my camera. (Terrible I know... if something went wrong goodbye memories of the last 8 months) This challenge will be a difficult and tedious one. But a very important one. I'm going to work hard on this one and will try to document what I've done along the way.

Steps recommended for this weeks' challenge:
1. Gather Loose Photos and Photo Albums From Around The House Into One Central Location
2. Sort Loose Photos Into Categories To Hole In Photo Storage Boxes
    a. Categorize Your Photos
    b. Declutter and Toss Certain Photos While You Sort, When Possible
    c. Label Dividers As Much As Possible
    d. Label The Outside Of Each Photo Box and Store Appropriately
3. Make Plans To Slowly Put Pictures Into Albums Or Scrapbooks From Boxes Over Time
4. Make Plans To Digitize Some or All Of Older Physical Photos (Optional)
5. Rotate and Add New Framed Photos Around Your Home
6. Properly Organize and Store Negatives and Slides
7. Organize Digital Photos and Back Them Up
8. Create Routines and Habits For How to Organize Photos from Now On

Alright.. let's get started.
1. Gather Loose Photos and Photo Albums From Around The House: I had some photos that didn't fit into the photo boxes I had. I went through them and put them into the photo boxes.

These were the random photos I had. 

2. a. Catergorize Photos: Mine are done by date and in photo boxes.
    b. Declutter and Toss: I got rid of more photos than I thought I would. I got rid of doubles, blurry photos, bad photos, etc. 
    c. Label Dividers: Most of my photos were sorted in chronological order and most were even labeled with the date of the event. 
    d. Label Box Outside: I haven't done this before and struggled remembering what box was for what year. A new label changed that! Each box got two address labels marked with what was inside. There was on label on the front and one on the side. 

Labeled by date. 

All of the photos after they have been decluttered and labeled. 

A close up of the label. 

3. Make Plans To Slowly Put Pictures Into Albums Or Scrapbooks From Boxes Over Time: I plan to scrapbook these photos and then start making photobooks online for the rest of the photos I haven't printed. 

4. Make Plans To Digitize Some or All Of Older Physical Photos (Optional): Almost all of my photos are already digitized. Except for photos from birth-middle school. I don't have plans of scanning them into my computer now. But maybe at some point just so I don't lose them. 
5. Rotate and Add New Framed Photos Around Your Home: I did that within the year. 
6. Properly Organize and Store Negatives and Slides: We don't have any. (yeah we are that young...)

7. Organize Digital Photos and Back Them Up: Phew... this one was intense! I'm still not done but I figured this was a good start! I spent quite a long time going through all the photos on my computer and organizing them by year and month. I also put them on my external hard drive. Photos safe! 

A big mess! I hadn't put pictures on my computer since January. Whoops! 

A closer look at the mess on my computer! So cluttered! 

SO MUCH BETTER!

I still need to go through the photos and delete the duplicates but this is a start. 

8. Create Routines and Habits For How to Organize Photos from Now On: For how many times I put my camera card in my computer I really need to start putting the photos on my computer on a bi-weekly basis! Let's see if I can do it! 

I'm still not done with photo organization but the rest will have to wait for another day. I've got some work to do!