Another New Year's Resolution?

How are all of your resolutions going? It's almost the middle of the month. Are you sticking to them?

It's time to add another resolution. It's time to get your digital collection under control!

Here are some tips I have learned along the way. Whatever method you use to store your photos is fine, but you need to start now. First, organize them by year - it's an easy sort whether it's finding the folder on your phone, or organizing a list on your computer.. Next, it's time to delete! Delete the photos that you just don't like or you don't think anyone could ever appreciate. You know those 10 pictures you took of the perfect sunset? Delete 9. How about the photos you took of your family at the park - delete lots of them - save the best. Sometimes starting with the most recent year can be helpful as you know what photos you took recently and it will be very fast.

After you have done this, start making albums for people. Facial recognition software is a start, but I don't find it does a great job. Make albums for your kids, your parents, special friends, whomever you think you may need to search for again. Think graduation, birthdays, celebrations, funerals. It will be a lot easier to just pull up these albums when you have some sort of big, time pressured event to get organized. And, it just takes a few extra steps to do this.

You can also make albums of trips or special days. By deleting first, you have a chance to review all of the photos (jogging your memory a bit ;), and then determine what other albums you need.

Finally, once you have everything done, back it all up. I like to put them on an external hard drive - just for safe keeping - and find a great place to put it. We had a computer hard drive crash several years ago. We had to decide if the photos are that hard drive were worth keeping or not, as it would take close to 2k to get them back after bringing them to a specialist for retrieval. Now we have an external hard drive in our safe deposit box. We put one in every few years - not every day. Find what works best - and just do it!

Best of luck on your resolutions! Honestly, tackling your digital collection can feel very rewarding. Happy 2020!

PS - if you're still with me - something I have started doing is utilizing downtime while I wait in the car to pick up my kids from sporting events or other activities. Rather than surfing, spend the time tackling the last few days of photos - delete, organized and repeat each time you have a chance. Good luck!