Organize your photos
Achieve a dreamy camera roll
I want to talk about organizing your digital photos on your phone. Quarantine is a great opportunity to tackle this task. I have been working on a couple of photo projects for my clients so I want to share my tips on that. And if you are busier now than ever, keep reading anyway, it is helpful, I promise.
Having your photos organized is as important as organizing the physical space around us. Physical clutter is just a bunch of items laying around without purpose in an untidy mess. The same applies to the digital photo clutter. Just a lot of photos laying in your camera roll waiting to be categorized or deleted.
Taking photos is like second nature to us. Because we are not tied with a limited amount of pictures we can take anymore (remember the physical photo film??), we take snaps of EVERYTHING. Few examples are family, friends, events, memories, vacations, parking lots so we don’t forget where we parked, random papers for reference, screenshots and many more. This easy grab & snap creates great memories but also a lot of mess in our camera rolls. Then when we are looking for something important it takes many scrolls and swipes to find what we are looking for among the thousands of pictures we have. Look in your camera roll now, how many photos do you have there? What is your magic number?
We have default categories on our phones to help us categorize, like by place or person but I don’t think they are very efficient, at least they don’t work for me. Organizing photos saves us time looking for the right one. Here is how to achieve your dreamy camera roll.
Delete right away
Don’t be afraid of the delete button. After you take many of the same photos from a different angle, distance, and filter, pick the few photos you like and delete the rest immediately. It does take just a few seconds and saves a headache when opening your camera roll with thousands of photos. It takes 30 days for the photos to disappear completely from your phone so if you change your mind, you know where to find them (“recently deleted” is what you are looking for).
Create albums
By year and month
I start my albums with one big folder named the year we’re in. So this year is 2020. Then I create sub-albums of each month. Starting January 2020 and continuing till the end of the year. That gives me more clarity about where my photos from each month are. This is also a default option on your phone, I like to select them myself and drag into an album for easier navigation.
By event
A good way to categorize your photos is by an event. Birthday parties, weddings, holiday celebrations, we like to go back to those nice memories so it is good to have them all together.
By place
This is another default category in your phone but the default picks all photos so even the ones that are screenshots or received photos. You can create an album from each vacation or trip you go to. You can store them under the “2020” folder for easy navigation. This can also fall under the events category, but I like to have the vacations separate.
Save your favorites
The photos you like and want to go back to can be saved as favorites with that little heart in the corner of the photo. Choose wisely, you don’t want to create clutter elsewhere. If you don’t have time to delete photos right away, use the favorite option to pick the ones you love and delete the rest later.
Choose your routine
Setting a timeline when you are going to organize is the first step. Then stick to it. Sometimes it is good to do a little sorting while waiting in line or using spare minutes here and there. I suggest organizing weekly and monthly. Weekly - you can delete photos you don’t like. Monthly - you can create new albums and categorize. Organizing your photo folder does not happen overnight so don’t get discouraged at the beginning! 10 minutes to start is an easy goal to start with :)
As usual, I am here to help with anything you need. Leave me a message and let’s chat!
Xoxo
Pavla
Looking to get organized? Have your dream space in mind? Contact me and lets get you organized!