Most of us live in a hectic, highly-scheduled world. We are bound by clocks and alarms. And from this perspective, we attempt to organize our lifetime of photos. But we get hung up on TIME. Your goal of organizing your lifetime of photos seems too overwhelming and it gets tabled for later.

I’m here to tell you a little secret. When it comes to organizing your photo collection, throw time out the window. Don’t get hung up trying to puzzle together days, months, years, even decades. You’ll make yourself crazy and won’t get anything accomplished.

The easiest way to start thinking about your photos is in categories. Birthdays, holidays, weddings, vacations, immediate family, extended family. You get the picture. While every family will have a different set of categories, it is MUCH easier to pour over thousands of family photos within the context of categories. Your category piles will start to build and you won’t waste any time struggling to remember the date & year of your Uncle Joe’s wedding.

Think about it. When you need to find a specific picture, you wouldn’t think, “I need to find that picture of my sister taken on April 5, 1973.” You think, “I remember a great picture of my sister taken at Uncle Joe’s wedding.” So when your photo organizing project is complete, you can easily open your archival-quality storage box, find the weddings section, then find the tab that says “Uncle Joe’s Wedding” and voilà! There’s that great pic of your sister!

This one tip alone will make it so much easier for you to start your photo organizing project, but if you still feel overwhelmed by the sheer VOLUME of photos, just remember I’m here to help. Contact me any time!

This was the scene in the court next to mine earlier this evening. A house engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes. Thankfully, the two residents who were home at the time got out safely. But guess what was the first thing she mentioned after saying all was lost? Her PICTURES. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, when tragedy strikes, what people want most are their pictures, not their clothes, their jewelry, their furniture. Their PICTURES. And sadly, so many of us don’t take the time to BACK UP our photo collections until it’s too late. 

Here are a few steps to take to protect your non-digital photo collection:

1) For the boxes and bags of prints you have from the pre-digital days, possibly scattered all over your house, gather them all in one place.
2) Next, commit the time to sorting through and organizing them.
3) Once organized, put them in an archival storage box that is easily accessible to grab in case of emergency. 
4) Another option with prints is to hire a reputable company like FotoBridge to scan them all to digital so they can be backed up along with the rest. 

For your digital photo collection, it’s common advice now to back up your digital files in at least three places. Two of those should be off site and at least one as far removed from you geographically as possible should disaster strike.

Here are several options for backing up your digital files:

1) Use an external hard drive (EHD) like PictureKeeper, that makes it ridiculously easy to collect ALL the digital images from your computer. Then keep the EHD either in a fire-proof safe, a safe deposit box or even send to a friend to store for you.
2) Use a cloud storage service like Carbonite or This Life which will cover you for remote location storage.
3) Burn your images to archival-quality DVDs like these from MAM-A and, again, put them in a fire-proof safe, a safe deposit box or a friend's house. 

I'm in this business because I care about protecting your family's cherished memories. I don't want to see another family in tears because they've lost everything, including their photos. I implore you to develop a back-up plan for your photo collection in the event of a catastrophe. We never want to think it could happen to us, but there's no harm in planning for the worst. If tragedy were to strike, you’ll be crying about your lost “stuff,” but feeling grateful that your photos are safe off site and can be recovered with ease.

This post has joined the Let's Get Organized Blog Hop over at Dinosaur Superhero Mommy's site.

I've been making digital photo books for so many years and I will always love looking at them. But I've recently fallen in love with turning my photos and video clips into slideshows set to music. The stories I'm telling really come alive in this format. They're slightly less labor intensive to create, plus, you get the gratification of seeing your finished product instantly once produced. In addition, you can share them so easily with family and friends by loading them on to your iPad or Smartphone.
I want YOU to be able to bring your stories to life via this format, too! To view a few samples, click here. And if you'd like to learn more about the powerful emotions these videos evoke, read my Lake Ridge Patch blog post here. 

I can be reached at megan@picturethisps.com or 703.875.0554

Kind words from my client, Dona Blackman:

[On the day we met] "I shared that I was struggling to put together a slideshow for my Mom's 80th birthday party (the next day). [Megan] said "Let me help you. I am here for you." Megan was my lifesaver. She not only produced the best slideshow I have ever seen, she met me late to upload the pictures and again on Saturday morning to provide me the DVD's. The music and transition of the pictures was flawless. Let's just say I cried the first time I saw it. My Mom loved it as did all the family members."

I've been meaning to do this for my children for YEARS. I attempt to keep the multitude of toys organized by using these shoebox-size storage bins from Target. But I've never gotten around to actually labeling them with what's inside. Check out this blog post on how to use photos to label your children's toys. It might mean the difference between your toddler's room being a mess or being spotless!

Do you have piles and piles and bins and bins of your children’s artwork cluttering up your house? I sure do and my daughter has only been in preschool for two years!

Here’s a great way to preserve your budding artist’s masterpieces:

1. Scan or photograph all their paintings, sculptures and drawings.
2. Either make prints and put them in a traditional photo album or upload them and design a digital photo book.
3. Enjoy those masterpieces forever in a book on your shelf vs. a bin full of clutter.

Take a look at Shutterfly’s children’s art-themed book called Mini Masterpieces. They also have several more professional-looking artist portfolio themes. Once you set your mind to it, the project won’t take as long as you think. Then when you have a beautiful photo book in your hands with all those special memories, you’ll feel less guilty throwing all their bulky art in the trash.

Did you hear me? I just said, “Throw their art in the trash.” Of course, you might want to hold on to a few key masterpieces that are just too hard to part with, but for the majority of drawings and paintings, they are now preserved for all eternity both digitally and in a printed book, so belly up to the bin and start tossing!

(I must admit this is easier said than done. I completed the first book of my daughter’s art several months ago and haven't had the courage to send the original art dumpster diving just yet.)

And don’t forget what a treasure this is to your children. My 4-year-old may not realize the effort it took to create the book, but she sure does appreciate it. She thanks me profusely for her art book and is so very proud of it. She’s gained a valuable sense of self-worth knowing Mommy thought her art was special enough to create an entire book of it. And that, in itself, is priceless.

This post is linked to the blog hop at A Dish Of Daily Life.