Organising Photos and Memorabilia

Most people have many photos/photos'>photos and memorabilia stashed in different parts of the house. It is always a task that will be accomplished at some vague point in the future. When you want to work on organising photos/photos'>photos and memorabilia, hold yourself to a particular time slot when you will get the task started.

When you are working on organising photos and memorabilia, it is best to give yourself a single spot in which you can work on this task. Organising photos and memorabilia often is not a task that can be done in a single sitting. It is a very fun task that will take longer than you expect because the photos will bring out certain memories that you will enjoy reminiscing about. The single spot can also allow you to break the task into smaller, more manageable pieces simply because it is a task most people will put off for years.

Most people will group pictures and memorabilia according to particular time periods. For you, that may mean that you group your photos by your childhood, the teen years, adult years, marriage, and then eventually to the family years. That is simply a suggestion. You can group all of the pictures separately from the memorabilia or put them together. This may depend upon whether you decide that you want to display the photos and memorabilia or you simply want them organised to bring out at specific times friends and family are over. This is a question that you will have to ask yourself.

It is preferable once you have organised all of your current photos and memorabilia to develop a system going forward. Most people will use digital cameras these days so take time once a month to download all photos and organise them on your desktop. Your photos can be placed according to the dates they were downloaded or you can put them into specific, theme-based folders such as family events or sporting events.

You may be struggling with the number of photos that you have to organise. One suggestion is that you could send them into a photo scanning company. They will scan all of your photos onto a disk and send them back to you. This can allow you to have all of your photos available in one particular location and you only have to go through them on the computer. This would work best if you organise your photos before you send them into the company. This can go simply according to eras such as when your children were under 5, entering high school, or wedding photos.

It can be very simply in organising photos and memorabilia. Give yourself some space and a couple of different time blocks to organise. Once everything is organised, how will you then take care of your photos and memorabilia going forward? This will keep you from having a backlog of photos and memorabilia to deal with again.

-By: Karen Perkins

Karen Perkins of Clear and Clutterfree is a small business owner based in Sydney, Australia. With qualifications in Counselling, Business Management and Training, Karen provides professional decluttering and organising services and is a member of Australasian Association of Professional Organisers AAPO.

For free tips and links visit http://www.clutterfree.com.au