The Top 10 Steps to Get Your Photos Organized

A lot of my clients have piles of photos that are still in their envelopes from the photo lab. You may wonder why this occurs. Photographs are precious to people, they are visual memories that can rekindle a moment in time. They want them organized so that they can look through them again, but they don't know where to begin. Below is a list of 10 steps to organizing your photo collection.

1. Go through house and find all of the photos in your house, boxes, tins, bags, and undeveloped rolls.
Think of this searching time as an archeological dig.

2. Do one roll or envelope at a time.
You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with imagery, so sort one envelope at a time.

3. Do a survey of your house to see if you have any organizing tools you were unaware of, for example, labels, archival photo albums, or blank sketch books that could be used for scrapbooking. Be sure to determine what you want to do with your photos first to begin your project.
NOTE: You have to think of projects like cooking, you need to plan everything out, from the ingredients to the materials to make it, like a bundt cake pan you need to make your recipe.

For a photo albums project first organize your photos by date, they usually have them on the back of the photos OR by event, birthdays, dinner parties, vacations and other events. There are so many ways to organize them you can really have your pick.

If you don’t find all of the photos at first and are worried about order you can buy photo albums or scrap books that have add on pages you can insert later.

Figure out approximately how many photo albums or scrap books you need.

Purchase the articles you need for the photos project, labels, books, and pens.

Start placing the photos in albums, with a glass of something that soothes you, for me it would be a diet coke, for you perhaps a glass of wine.

Have fun! Think of how nice it will be to go over old photos, know where they are, and not have to worry about them getting moldy, faded, or worse, lost.

Here are some great websites that tells you more about preserving your photos:
http://www.maine.com/photos/tip.htm
http://www.uni.edu/petersog/icpctip5.html
http://www.photographymuseum.com/archival.html
http://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/membersGallery/archiving/caringForAlbums.shtml

4. Go shopping and look around for all of the organizing products there are out there.
This is the fun part, you get to look all over to find what photo holder suits your needs better. You could either by archival photo boxes, scrap books, or simple photo album.

Be sure not to buy photo albums with magnetic pages, these can ruin photos, it not only fades the photo after time, but if you ever want to scan a photo later, it might not come free, it has happened to me!

5. Determine which one suits your needs better.
Be sure you get what will fit your personality, for example, if you are the type that will sit and stare at the photos all day and never get around to putting them away, (I am talking about the people who go to clean their rooms and find an old paper or book and end up spending the day reading that rather than getting the job done, it happens to the best of us!) if you do this, photo boxes with labels might be better for you.

6. Price shop – Target, and Fred Meyer always have sales, you can also go on line to professional organizers websites who offer products and see what their prices are, sometimes after shipping and handling the items cost about as much as you would pay at a store, so be careful, especially if you are on a budget.
Here are a couple of web sites: http://www.creativememories.com/home.asp
www.albumsource.com
http://www.dbphotoalbums.com/
http://www.pioneerphotoalbums.com/

If you type in photo albums as a search on Google you will find a ton of websites.

You could also go digital and scan all of your old photos onto a computer, if you are less a hands on person, and more of a computer person, here are two great web sites on just that subject:
http://photos.yahoo.com/
http://www.picturetrail.com/

There are cheaper ways to go about putting your photos onto a computer database or a disk.

Microsoft has a great program, called my pictures.

If you are going to scan, I suggest you purchase a scanner to save money, it gets expensive to do this service done at a photo store, it adds up fast!

7. After purchasing the items required for the photos, set everything up on a card table.
Do not to use your kitchen table or dining room table, it tends to stay like this for months to be sure you have everything you need to get started, (remember the cooking analogy).

8. If you don’t finish it all in one day, clean up the clutter you have made you can even store it in a closet just put it away, otherwise it will add to your disorganization creating more stress, which makes you feel overwhelmed and then you are back to square one.

9. Take it one photo album at a time. Some people need to take baby steps; this is ok, especially with a smaller sized project, such as photo albums, (in other words in takes up less space).
This is supposed to be fun, if it helps do it in front of the TV with your favorite movie on, or play a soothing CD.

10. If you are feeling overwhelmed by the process, bring a buddy in for support.
Sometimes just having someone there can make the process a lot less overwhelming. If using a buddy doesn’t go smoothly don’t despair, you can always call me for a free hour consultation over the phone, I am also happy to come in and give you a hand.

About the Submitter
This piece was originally submitted by Leslie Straka, Member of National Association of Professional Organizers, Member of National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization, Professional Organizer, who can be reached at leslie@personworks.com, or visited on the web. Leslie Straka wants you to know: I am a Professional Organizer and owner of Personworks. I have been helping people get organized for over 12 years. My passion is finding unique systems to conquer clutter and help people improve their lives. I specialize in intuitive approaches to organizing spaces, paper, and people’s time.
Copyright 1997 - 2003 CoachVille