Picture/Keepsake Round-Up and my Six Simple Steps to Picture Organization

Updated to add: Our winner is Messy Moms!  Thanks to everyone for participating!!

Okay I have no idea how it is the end of March already but here we are.  I’ll be so glad to finish off with pictures this month…whew.  I know this was a tough challenge month, believe me I know, so even if you didn’t complete what you set out to do I’d still really like to encourage you to post on your progress anyway.   For this month I’m also not going to require you to include before and after pictures  because some of you I know were concentrating on organizing your pictures online and that’s not too easy to take pictures of :)  Of course you know we love the pictures so if you can that’s great, we’d love to see them!

What’s really important here behind this huge challenge is that you’ve made progress.  Big or small an accomplishment is an accomplishment.  Don’t get down on yourself for what you didn’t accomplish but be proud of what you have done.   If you haven’t finished yet make a list of what you still want to do and figure out the steps and timeline you need to take to get er done.  Hang in there, organizing pictures is a daunting task.  Don’t give up, it can be done!  Hopefully we’ll see some successful entries today that will help motivate you.

As for me and my pictures.  After a long time coming I feel as if I finally have a good system that is working well for me.  I was going to write this up as a separate post and got behind but I did want to share my system with you and so I will do it here today in SIX simple straight forward steps.  I like simple.  I like straightforward.

photo by mike (inbet_1979)

1.  Take pictures.

2.  Download pictures to computer on the same day they were taken.  I have my pictures set up (through Kodak EasyShare) to automatically download to the current year folder and then each batch of photos is categorized by date.   This is why it is especially helpful for me to download my pictures immediately.  To find a picture I need I just have to click on the year it was taken and then on the day.  Most of the pictures I take these days are around events so remembering the day I took them is fairly easy.

3.   Copy.  Within the current year folder I have a Pictures to Print folder.  After I do any required touch ups to the pictures I simply copy the ones I want to print to this specific folder.

4.  Print.  Once the Pictures to Print folder has about 100 pictures or so I upload that entire folder to Kodak Gallery and have them printed.  Most recently I have been printing them into photobooks which I like because it says me the step of having to file them into photo albums when they come back AND photobooks take up way less space than the photo albums do.

5.  Back up.  Not only do I now have my keeper pictures stored at Kodak Gallery but I also routinely back up all my photos to a thumb drive and CD for extra measure.

6.  Enjoy.

photo by Orcoo

I know there are many many ways to organize pictures and keepsakes and that is exactly what I’m hoping to see linked up here today.  Tell us what works for you, you never know who will be inspired and helped by it.

To participate please link up below to a post on your site that tells us how you did with your picture/keepsake organization this month.  Remember to use the direct link to your round-up post and not to your homepage.  That’s helpful for those of us who might not get a chance to take a peek at your post until later.  Also, as a courtesy, if you are going to participate please be kind and link back to this post within your post.

Those that link up before Friday, April 3rd at 6:00 pm PST will be eligible to win a CD copy of the Dovetail Organizer, a digital safety deposit box that provides protection and peace of mind.

The lucky winner will be selected randomly from the Mr. Linky list below.  Good luck and thanks for joining me here!

Next month should be super easy….organizing any cupboard or closet in your home.  Now that we can all do!  Further details on the monthly round-ups can be found here.