Keep Up THEN Catch Up

Do you have photo organizing resolutions for 2020 or the 2020's?

I resolved to keep up to date with my photos. When I moved to digital photography over a decade ago, I fell behind keeping them organized and into albums. The more I fell behind, the more I procrastinated to catch up. It becomes overwhelming to see the number of photos grow and grow.

Like the saying goes, it's easier to keep up than to catch up. Many people use this saying when referring to housework, tasks or emails but it's also perfect for photo organization.

It's what I used to teach in my scrapbooking classes in the 2000's:

Keep up with the current photos 

and THEN catch up with older ones.

Although I am not up to date with my photos from the 2010's, I'm starting fresh in the 2020's. I'm focusing on keeping up and then I'll catch up.

Here are some tips for keeping up:

• Rate or rank the best photos (eg. on iPhone click the heart icon)
• Separate very top photos from the rest by creating a folder or album (top 1%)
• Delete blurry, unflattering and duplicate photos
• Choose a time and/or place (and add it to your calendar or to do list):
• daily, weekly or monthly (as often as possible is best)
• at your computer, on your phone
• while travelling, waiting in line or for an appointment
• with morning coffee or evening drink
• replace a meaningless task with photo organizing. For example if you check social media or the news more often than you would like, open your photos application instead.
• If your program allows, add keywords or tags (like Family, Friends, Mexico, Birthday, etc.)
• Crop and/or edit your best photos if needed
• Share on social media or photo sharing site like Flickr, Picasa, Google, Amazon
• Print photos you want to enlarge and frame or include in photo albums
• Import photos into photobook

I'll be going into more detail on keeping up and catching up tips and workflow ideas in the future.

Bookmark the landing page on Revive55 Project for Keep Up Then Catch Up to check back for updates.