I know lots up people ask this question to themselves and sometimes out loud to others. So many pictures; some is dusty boxes, others in piles here and there, and now days they are all uploaded and saved to a computer or cloud. The task of organizing them just seems too overwhelming. How in the world can you get started when you don’t know where anything is. I promise you, it is easier than you think. The first thing I want you to remember is “You don’t have to try to do it all at once, you didn’t create all those memories in a day so it will take time.” I am a fairly organized person, most of my pictures are backed up and save electronically. The first thing I tackled were the pictures that I had saved on a computer. These would be the easiest since most if not all of them have dates attached to them in the files. I made folders, one for each year. I started with 2006. Then in each year’s folder, I created a folder for each month.

You could stop there, or take it one step further and make folders for each day. I DID take it to the next step, but only as I needed them. It was so simple once I got started. Copy and paste or drag and drop those pictures! Side note: If you want to scrapbook in chronological order like I do, then save the pictures to specific dated folders like 2008>August>5. You can easily stick to the year and month folders and be perfectly happy with that was well!

I will be honest, I spent lots of time looking at the pictures and reminiscing. I would recommend doing a little each day or set aside some time each week to devote to this. I do not recommend trying to do it all at once. I TRIED and just about lost my mind. TOO much screen time, I ended up with a headache almost every day.

Now that your folders are created, it will make it easier to organize the rest of them. Migrate all those pictures from your phone, SD cards, and cameras. Save them to your folders.

Eh… the dreaded pile of pictures and boxes and boxes of pictures. More simple then you think. Do the same think you did with your electronic photos. I had a combination of baskets, boxes and totes. I labeled them by year. Then I used zip lock bags to put them in by month. Easy peasy!

I had lots of time on my hands during the covid shut down. It still took me about two months to do it! I do have WAY TO MANY pictures though.