Overwhelmed by Family Photos? Here’s How to Organize Them in Three Steps
Your photos may be stored safely in plastic bins in zip-top bags (or maybe they aren’t, in which case, read this post about how to safely store your pictures in three steps), but you might still be overwhelmed by all your family photos. You stare at them, feeling guilty about a hundred years of old photos stored in boxes. So many — too many — old family pictures stored in boxes. You’re ready to roll up your sleeves and dig in, but how do you organize them? How do you decide what to purge and what to preserve? How do you even get started?
Here are three simple steps to take to finally get control of and organize all your family pictures and lose that overwhelmed feeling for good.
1. Make a sorting plan and schedule
Create a sorting schedule. Every Sunday evening for an hour? One Saturday afternoon a month?
Decide how you’ll sort them. You’ll need two sizes of clean, clear zip-top bags. Smaller zip-top bags work well for smaller groups of pictures; group smaller bags together in bigger bags. Write the topic of the photos on the outside of each bag – a Sharpie permanent marker works well. Smaller bags can hold photos from an event (say, a graduation) or a season (summer) and bigger bags can hold the bags for a year, or decade. There are usually many fewer old photos, so grouping by decade is typically a good way to go.
Decide where you’ll sort them. Often the dining room table is a good choice. It’s a good height for sitting, standing and good space for moving around.
2. Sort, save, and eliminate
In most cases, you have many more photos than you need to tell your family’s story. And we don’t just mean in a book! Even if you just leave your stories sorted into little baggies, grouped by event and year, someone should be able to open that bag and understand what happened in your family that year or at that time, without being distracted by duplicates or damaged images or photos that aren’t meaningful.
Put on your editor hat. It’s tough, but you need to be serious about it. Photos can’t be enjoyed if they are overwhelming, don’t bring joy, and don’t bring back memories or tell stories.
Sort! Remember what we said about plastic bags and sharpies? Sort your photos, by event or year and put them in their bags. Choose the fewest number of the highest quality images to tell the story of that event. And yes, throw away the photos that don’t make the cut! Thank them for their service (à la Marie Kondo), then put them in the trash.
Always put your project away when you’re done. Put it back in its safe place in the closet or in plastic boxes on a table in the basement, when you’ve finished the session.
3. Relax and enjoy the process
Have fun and expect it to take longer than you think. You’ll get caught up in the memories, I promise. Are you an introvert? Then “fun” for you may be simply going through and sorting your pictures for your allotted time. Are you an extrovert? Then “fun” for you may be taking advantage of an upcoming family gathering like Thanksgiving, an anniversary party, or a summer vacation to have a group join you in the sorting process. Be sure to record the conversations as you review the photos to catch the stories! Keep a pad and paper nearby to write down your favorite photos and where to find them in the bags. Your favorites could form a photostorybook later! No matter what, have fun with it. The memories relived through the process can be priceless. And, always be on the lookout for your “Big Daddy” photo. There you go — doable? Feeling less overwhelmed? A bit of control? I hope so!