Digital Photo Organization Happy Dance!

​Don’t ya love it when you can celebrate an accomplishment?

We are just a few days into July and I’m so proud for all of my January – June 2020 digital photos are fully ORGANIZED and part of my photo library collection. I couldn’t be happier!

And by organized, I don’t just mean sitting in a folder by month – nope!
– They have short, descriptive names
– are named in a way that facilitates discovery by date
– are backed up in triplicate – including in my private, secure, online photo account

– have descriptions & labels so that I can tell the stories behind the photos

All of these steps (and more) let me have a stellar, dynamic, and powerful digital photo library. I can search for and access any photo in my library within seconds, and this allows me to use them so much more effectively for my family history and legacy sharing.

I stay on top of my digital photos by reserving time each month to work on them. I am often surprised that it does not take very long either – much less time than one might think – I typically need just about 90 minutes and it is only that long because I usually do additional genealogy work at the same time (shh— I may or may not find myself taking screenshots of family members’ Facebook posts for events in their lives that I then use to update my genealogy files).

In the month of June, for example, I started off with 69 photos- and this includes screenshots I captured. Admittedly, since we have been largely homebound, we are not taking as many pictures and that does help with their management.

My first step is to go through them and delete ones I do not need.  I posted a challenge to my FB group (which you should join by the way!) to have them do the same and it was great to see the variety of responses. From those that regularly delete to those that jokingly ask if they can be moved to a “do not want to delete” folder – ha ha!

In my case, I was able to get my 69 down to 43 pictures. I then rename the files, import them into my photo management software, where for each picture, I do any needed edits, add descriptions, add labels, and then upload to my online provider. Easy peasy!

What happy dance will you celebrate this weekend when it comes to your legacy sharing?