Got a lot of photos? Do you want to be able to enjoy your pictures instead of having to search and search to find your favourites? Does the thought of tackling your photo collection seem so overwhelming that you keep putting it off? Me too!
That's why this month I'm hosting the 31 Day Photo Decluttering Challenge! Each day I'll share tips to help you declutter your photo collection so you can really treasure and enjoy all the best ones. And I'll share my progress as I declutter my photos along with you :)
Today I'm talking about maintenance. You've worked hard to declutter and organize your photo collection but now you'll need to plan some regular maintenance so it doesn't get out of hand again.
Today's Photo Decluttering Tip - Set Up a Maintenance Plan For Your Collection
There are a few different things to keep your photo collection maintained so you can continue to enjoy your photos for years to come.
1. Schedule regular backups of your digital collection. We talked about backups on day 20 and the importance of regular backups. Hopefully by now you've done a full 3-2-1 backup of your collection. But you need to back up your pictures on a regular basis so your latest photos are always protected. How often you backup depends on how many pictures you take, how often you take pictures, and what your process is for backing up your photos. To make sure you keep up with your regular backups, set repeating reminders on your phone or whatever you use for your to-do list.
2. Declutter your photos frequently. The best way to keep your photo collection in a state that allows you to enjoy your photos is to declutter them regularly. If you keep your photos on your phone for quite awhile, take time every week or two to declutter your latest pics. You can do this while you're waiting for appointments, waiting at carpool pick-up, or when you're watching TV. Don't let your collection get out of hand with the kinds of photos you decluttered this month (blurry, repetitious, temporary, etc.).
3. Consolidate your photos consistently. Remember at the beginning of this challenge where you were gathering photos from all the different devices you had them on and you collected them all in one place? Make sure you're doing this regularly enough that you know all the pics you have and don't accidentally lose any of them.
4. Have a process in place to regularly print photos for photo albums or to create photobooks. If you do chronological albums it's a good idea to add to yours every month. Doing this means you are close enough to the events to record details, and the cost of printing pictures is spread out throughout the year. If you create family yearbook type photobooks, you can begin an album online and add a couple of pages of photos each month. If you prefer more of a thematic photobook, you can still add to the photobook each month with pics that fit with the themes you're including that year. Either way, by the end of the year you only need to finish a few pages and your book is ready to print. Much less overwhelming than trying to do it all at once.
5. A few times per year print some of your favourite recent photos and swap them with other photos in frames around your home. You don't have to keep all the framed photos you've ever framed. If you do that and keep adding frames, your home will get cluttered after awhile from all the frames. Have at least a few frames that you can rotate new pictures in and out once in awhile.
Doing these 5 things regularly will help you enjoy your photos for years to come! And your collection won't get as overwhelming again :)
My Photo Decluttering Progress
I'm plugging along with my digital photo collection decluttering :) I decluttered 240 pictures today, which was 75% of the photos I went through. There were a lot of similar pics from vacations and a few special events. Once again I chose a few favourites and deleted all the rest. Since I know I want to make photobooks with my pictures I'm being more ruthless and only keeping pictures that I know are worthy of a spot in a photobook.
Your Turn!
Today your task is to set reminders in your phone or computer or on your calendar for regular maintenance of your photos. Decide how frequently you want to do each of the five steps above and add in separate reminders for each step. Keep decluttering if you've still got more photos to go... every little bit helps :)
If you'd like more decluttering ideas, you can check out my Decluttering/Purging Tips & Ideas board on Pinterest.
How are you doing in the 31 Day Photo Decluttering Challenge so far? How do you think today's tip will help you? What photos are you decluttering today? How often do you plan to do each of the maintenance steps listed in today's post?
Happy decluttering and organizing!
Here are the rest of the posts in this challenge:
