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 sharing a list of supplies that professional photo organizers recommend using when decluttering and organizing your photos.
Today's Photo Decluttering Tip - Make Sure You Have the Right Tools
It's always important to have the right tools for any task or project. Decluttering your photos is no exception. You may have already gathered some of these tools as you've been decluttering this month but if not, here's a list from the experts: Collect Your Photo Organizing Supplies.
I'm not a professional photo organizer, and I'm just working with my own photos, so I haven't necessarily been as careful as the pros. My photos haven't had any water damage either so I haven't been worried about mold. But I wanted to share that list so that if you want to take all the precautions that an expert takes, you can.
Here are a few tools I have used though:
- Index cards and sticky notes to help me keep photos in groups together
- My camera to take pictures of some album pages that had information about the pictures
- A photo box to store the pictures I'm keeping until I scan them
{Those are affiliate links}
Am I missing any important tools for handling your photos? What else have you used?
My Photo Decluttering Progress
I decluttered another photo album today. I deleted 96 pictures which was about 60% of the album. There were more groups of photos where I could just pick a few favourites and let go of the rest. For example, my pictures from my grade 8 trip to Washington DC were in this album, but I was only in a few of them. Lots of pictures of landmarks and buildings. I kept a few of those and kept the ones that I was in, but let go of lots of other scenic photos.
This was also the age that I started using a camera more myself so there were lots of blurry pics or pictures of random people and places. And pictures of me with each one of my friends at an event, along with 1-2 pictures of all of us together. So I kept the group shots and let go of most of the individual ones. I figure if I'm making a photo book with the best of the best pictures, I'd only put the group ones in, so there was no need to keep the others.
I'm at about a 50% ratio overall for my photo albums which I'm pretty happy with.
Your Turn!
Today's task is to check out the list of photo handling supplies and decide which ones you are going to need or use. If you haven't already gathered them then do that today so you can use them moving forward.
Keep decluttering your photos as well! Maybe you want to pick another era from yesterday's sorting. Choose one that has a lot of photos so you can reduce that pile to just the best pictures from that era.
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?
Happy decluttering and organizing!
Here are the rest of the posts in this challenge:
