How do I organize my photos? With a lot of grimacing and groaning and stern talks to myself. See, about 13 years ago, I started making these family yearbooks every year. This involved sorting through all of our family photos for the previous year and glueing them into a scrapbook. Then I switched to digital books about 10 years ago.
Now the process involves sorting through between 800-1000 photos, selecting about 300-400 of them, sorting them into individual folders by month on my computer, editing them as needed, then dragging and dropping them into the layout templates supplied by the album software. This all takes a really long time to do!
This current album I’m holding is our 2018 album that I FINALLY finished in July 2019. To get it done, I had to wait until my husband and son went out of town, then I forced myself to sit on the couch for about 20 hours (spread out over 3 days) and finish it. I watched 5 movies, drank 4-5 LaCroixes, ate mostly tater-tots and allowed myself only a handful of breaks until it was done. I was my own inner drill sergeant! Ha!
Every year, I grump around the house, ranting that I’m not going to do the album this year, that it’s just too much work. But every year, I force myself to make one, and I’m always so glad I did! My husband likes to say that if our house ever catches on fire, the albums will be the one object that he grabs and runs away with.
If you want to make an album similar to mine, you can make one through Shutterfly. I always order the 11″x14″ size, and mine turn out to be 45-50 pages long. My finished album runs about $100, but Shutterfly is really good about sending me coupons, so I can often order it for under $80. It is best to have all of your photos sorted chronologically and edited first before starting. And like I said, it takes me about 20 hours to make, so plan accordingly.
So there you have it. Even professional organizers struggle with certain organizing tasks in their own homes. But I’m really pleased with our stack of family yearbook albums, so I guess I’ll keep making them! Happy Organizing, everyone!
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