How To Organize Pictures: Overcome Your Roadblocks First

We all have the vision of a picture perfect system – your best pictures in perfect albums – so what has been stopping us all this time?

Before you worry about how to organize pictures, you first need to overcome the roadblocks that have made you take this long to get started. Here we talk about five things that may be stopping you taking the plunge and what you can do about them. You can then get on with organizing pictures and enjoying the results.

Roadblock 1 – Too many photos

Many people feel so overwhelmed by trying to organize their photos that they simply give up. For some people it gets so bad, that they actually stop taking pictures because they don’t want to add to the mess!

Try and break away from your all or nothing mentality. Think small – take one envelope of photos or see what you can get done in 10 minutes. Congratulate yourself for these small achievements, which will motivate you to do more.

How To Organize Pictures: Roadblock

Roadblock 2 – It’s no fun

Take yourself and your collection to your favorite room in the house, perhaps a sunny spot in spring or on a rug in front of the fire in winter. There you will feel relaxed and enjoy reminiscing over your photo collection.

Alternatively enjoy the time by putting on some of your favorite music or invite friends round who have a similar out of control collection and make a party of it.

Roadblock 3 – It’s too emotional

Family histories are packed with emotional memories whether from divorce, illness or losing loved ones. Be gentle to yourself, let your photos help you remember the good times. Use this time as part of your healing process, or perhaps get a friend round to help you cope.

Roadblock 4 – Not sure which storage product to use

Whether you choose albums or boxes, as long as they are photo safe (ie, acid free), you only need to worry about whether or not you like the look of the storage option and whether it is big enough to hold your collection and can be added to at any time.

Albums are nice to flick through but ideally you need to know what is going to go on each page before you start, whereas boxes are easier to insert photos into that you may come across later in the process.

Just make sure you buy enough of the color and type of album you like upfront. A collection of identical albums looks far nicer on your bookshelf than an eclectic array of mismatched items.

Roadblock 5 – Doing it perfectly

There is no wrong way when thinking about how to organize your home and this applies to organizing pictures just as much. The only thing you can do wrong, is to do nothing at all with them.

I’d love to hear what your roadblocks are so we can talk about how to overcome them. Please leave me a comment.