10 Healthy Photo Habits (A.K.A. Resolutions) to Keep Your Photos Organized All Year Long!

Happy 2019, photo fans! It’s a new year, and with that comes new resolutions! Since January is GO (Get Organized) Month, we thought we’d start the year off by inspiring you to adopt some healthy photo habits to make this coming year’s organizing tasks a little less daunting! Here’s our Top 10 ways to ensure that you stay organized and happy all year long! Let’s GO!

 

Welcome back! We hope you enjoyed the holidays and spent plenty of time together with those who matter to you! Did you also remember to take some time to appreciate those moments? Hope so! If you find yourself reading this, it’s pretty clear that memories are important to you, so let’s start fresh with a new outlook this year, shall we?

Every year, it’s important to reflect on what happened last year and how you can let go of some of the issues that held you back. If you’re struggling with organizing, it’s likely that some of your photos habits aren’t serving you well. Here are our recommendations for habits that can help you turn your photo memories into a streamlined organized photo collection and finally enjoy your memories with your loved ones!

 

Tip #1 – Backup Your Photos – Always.

The number one habit we want you to develop this year is to back up your photos regularly. Need we say, more? Probably not, but we will. 🙂

What’s the worst case scenario for your photo collection? To lose them forever, right? Can you imagine how horrible this would make you feel? Countless people lose their photos in stolen cameras, failed hard drives, crashed computers, or as a result of natural disaster – every year. Don’t be one of them. Back up your photos! Always!

Regardless of your photo management system and your photo organizing goals, there’s one thing that you should create immediately: a backup strategy based on the 3-2-1 method. Keep 3 copies of your photo collection on 2 different media types, and store one of these copies offsite. For example, you can copy your photo collection onto two external hard drives as well as upload it to a cloud account. Also consider automatic backups, so you don’t forget this important task! Better safe than sorry!

 

Tip #2 – Shoot Responsibly

The biggest challenge in organizing photos is the huge number of photos we are take every day. Many more than we need. We take photo after photo, often on our phones, forget to delete stuff, share everything everywhere, and then end up in photo chaos. The simple truth is that more photos equals more organizing.

If you want to have an organized photo collection, you need to be selective, which is why a great healthy photo habit to have awareness. Be aware when you’re taking photos that you’re not going to need all of them. If you realize that you’re snapping away dozens of photos just to get one good shot, it’s easier to remember that you have to delete the rest. At least be more mindful of getting that one shot right. This year, try to capture only the moments that are real value to you, and give up the habits that create clutter.

Do you know why you’re taking photos? Here’s a simple bullet journal exercise that can help you discover your photo-taking motivation and set good habits for the new year.

Also, be aware of your camera settings! Do you really need all those LIVE photos or bursts? You can make a huge difference in the amount of clutter you collect on your camera roll by adjusting your phone camera settings wisely.

 

Tip #3 – Delete Regularly and Ruthlessly

Continuing on tip #2, an important photo organizing habit (just like in any other organizing work), is to be able to let go of unnecessary stuff. This means deleting the typical kind of photos cluttering your photo collection – blurry photos, duplicates, bursts, similar photos, poorly exposed and poorly composed photos. And those photos which don’t have any memory value whatsoever, like random screenshots, reminders, and other irrelevant images. Being ruthless at this stage will help you have a meaningful collection with only those memories that are worth keeping. We all have hard time pushing the delete button when it comes to our memories. But you can follow these tips to overcome this emotional challenge by setting some criteria on which photos to delete.

Whenever you find time during the day, open your photo gallery on your phone, and delete unnecessary shots immediately. Deleting photos is easiest when they’re still on your phone because your memory is still fresh about them. I mean, let’s be honest, you’re probably looking at your phone anyway. 😉

 

Tip #4 – Choose a Simple Photo Organizing System

When it comes to photo management, there isn’t a perfect solution that fits everyone. The best photo organizing solution for you is the one that suits to your specific needs and that fits the level of your technical knowledge. So why not choose a system that can make your life easier this year? Maybe it’s time to upgrade?

If you are a beginner user, then most of the tools you need are already built into your computer, no matter if you have a PC or a Mac. First of all decide how you want to sort your photos (for example chronological or thematic). If you haven’t done so far, this is the year to learn how to sort your photos with tags and keywords on Windows or how to create custom tags on your Mac. And then learn how to edit your photos quickly with free native apps such as Microsoft Photos on Windows or Preview (on Mac).

If you can, we recommend that you go a step further and use a photo management software like Adobe Lightroom, Apple Photos, Google Photos, Mylio or Photo Mechanic. Why? Because large collections often need more powerful batch organizing and processing features, and plus, it’s so much fun! Ask yourself these key questions to help you pick the best photo management software that fits your needs.

 

Tip #5 – Stick to a Routine

Having a “Let’s do it now” attitude helps immensely when it comes to managing your photo collection. You really need to stick to a routine and be consistent, otherwise a backlog of new photos will build up quickly, and you’ll find yourself in a mess again before long. How do you avoid the need to catch up? Regular maintenance, that’s how. 

Schedule time every month to transfer your photos from your all devices onto your digital photo hub – the central location where your whole photo collection’s primary copy is stored. Make sure that you do the basic organizing immediately, such as grouping the new photos and deleting unnecessary shots. Then you can add metadata, like tags, captions, and locations later on.

If you want to go pro and save time, you can always customize and improve your workflow with some automation.

 

 

 

 

Tip #6 – Create Something with Your Photos

Make your memories a part of your daily life this year! Once you have an organized photo collection, you can easily find memories that are most important to you and create something out of them. This is why you took them in the first place! It’s easy to let the overwhelm take over and want to forget about this part, but once you hold that photo book in your hands, you’ll actually feel even more motivated!

And it doesn’t have to be complicated or take a long time! Create photo books for your holidays, celebrations, and other events, so you can look at them together with your family. Think of some creative photo gift ideas for special occasions to make loved ones happy. Create a slideshow to watch with a few friends, family or a larger group of people. Read our tips on how to make a yearbook! Today there are a lot of options to create home and office accessories with photos. Just do it!

 

Tip #7 – Share Your Photos

This year, share more photos with your loved ones to celebrate great moments. It goes hand in hand with healthy photo habit #6, creating something! Part of the joy of photos is to actually enjoy them, and chances are you weren’t alone in creating them!

You can share photos via:

• Email
• Digital photo frames, like Nixplay
• Social media accounts, like Facebook and Instagram
• Instant messaging apps, like WhatsApp
• Cloud storage services, like Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive
• Photo organizing apps, like Apple Photos and Google Photos 
• Online photo sharing services, like Flickr, SmugMug, Forever, and Shutterfly
• Your idea here

When I get photos via email and on WhatsApp, it creates an additional work to retrieve them and put them in order within the overall photo collection (unless you set up an automation system), so I do prefer to use online photo services for the least amount of work. All of these options have pros and cons, but whatever online service you use for sharing your photos, just keep in mind about your digital rights and check their service agreement so you make an informed decision about which service meets your expectations and privacy concerns.

 

Tip #8 – Work on Digitizing Your Old Photos

Maybe this is the year you start scanning and organizing those old print photos from your childhood? Or have you recently inherited some boxes of slides from your family? We encourage you to make this might the year to tackle your pre-digital days photo life. Print photos deteriorate faster and are prone to household accidents and natural disasters, so if you have a lot of precious print memories, act sooner rather than later. 

If you’re a DIYer, you can scan your photos at home with a prosumer scanner or a camera setup – you’ll need to set aside a bit of time and have the basic knowledge on photography and scanning jargon, like resolution, PPI, and DPI, etc, but other than that, there’s nothing stopping you. Start planning it and get to work! If you want to scan on the go, check out mobile solutions, like Photomyne. Don’t want to do it yourself? Outsource the task to a pro! You don’t need to do it all at once, but get started in one way or another!

 

Tip #9 – Discover Some New Tools

Education is a top priority our ours here at OrganizingPhotos.net, and we try to constantly stay updated on all the new technology that emerges every day. We encourage you to do the same – it’s fun! Why not learn something new this year? How about a new program that can help you organize your photos more efficiently?

To start, have a look at apps like Name Changer to quickly batch name change any files on your computer (MacOS), PhotoSweeper or Duplicate Photos Fixer to find and delete duplicates (MacOS/Windows), or perhaps Photo Mechanic to browse your photos and add metadata easily. These are just a few, of course, but you get the idea. There are also various apps you could play with on your phone, perhaps to edit that Instagram photo, or to create a slideshow. Whatever your goals are this year, there’s a fun new tool our there waiting to be discovered! And if you need help figuring any of this out, we’ve got courses to help you get started!

 

Tip #10 – Know When to Ask for Help

A lot of us take on too much, and it’s hard to admin that you’ve been stumped. But it happens…to all of us. We may not have all the answers you need in life, but we’ve got you when it comes to photo organizing! If you’re way behind but feel like this is the year to finally catch up in organizing your lifetime of photos, we can help you strategize a game plan in a one-on-one session! Not tech-savvy enough to handle a photo organizing project or create a photo book? That’s OK! Let us explain it you! Maybe you simply don’t have time? We do! Let us know how we can help, and let’s get this done – once and for all! And if you’re intrigued by all of this and think you want to learn more before reaching out, be sure to check out our “Getting Started” page, and sign up for our free organizing course! A little coaching can help you get from A to B faster and with less headaches in between! Let’s make 2019 productive!

 

You can do it!

This can be the year to put your photos in order and enjoy your memories! 

Shoot more meaningful photos, let go of unnecessary items, make your life easy with simple systems and good tools, stick to a routine, make your photos a part of your everyday life, and share your memories with others.

Does it take a bit of effort? Sure, but it’s worth it! Promise!

 

Featured Photo Courtesy of Sarandy Westfall