Your precious memories organised, utilised, enjoyed

21 Jul Your precious memories organised, utilised, enjoyed

For those of you that visited The Office Space – Officeworks Blog to read our input on how to ‘Unclutter and organised your workspace’ you would be familiar with our ‘organise > utilise > enjoy’ theory.

After last weeks Time Trial video we wanted to remind you of the benefits of organising your photos by applying the same ‘organise > utilise > enjoy’ theory to this post about photo organising.

In today’s digital age people are taking hundreds of images each week.

Having hundreds of photos sitting cluttering up your computer/smart phone or other devices serves no true purpose. Think about why you actually took the photo in the first place? Reasons like;

• To remember and enjoy a special occasion at a later date
• To reflect on a certain period of time
• To share a precious moment with someone who couldn’t be there
• Even just to show that your kids are actually clean before they left the house to attend a party (you know for that 2-3 minutes)

If your images are unorganised it can make it very difficult to fulfil the purpose of taking the photo in the first place.

Here are some common scenarios:

Scenario 1. {Remember} 

In 40 years time you are reminiscing over dinner about the terrible brown suit dad wore to your wedding, your brother insists the suit was cream.

What could happen if your photos are unorganised:  The argument turns to who took the photos and where they are stored before you realise they may have been lost in the fire that destroyed your old shed because there was only one copy and no back up. Dinner ruined.

What would happen if your photos are organised:  You or your brother (because you both have copies) decide to settle it once and for all by pulling up an images you had digitised from the wedding within seconds with a simple keyword search.

“Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while you might miss it.” Ferris Beuller.

Life is full of rich wonderful moments that you will want to remember in years to come, your photos will of course help prompt fond memories and family stories.

Scenario 2. {Reflect}

Your grandmother has passed on and you are asked to prepare a slide show before her funeral in 3 days time.

What could happen if your photos are unorganised: The anxiety and emotion of calling friends and family trying to collect old images has you run down with fatigue and stress.

What would happen if your photos are organised:  Having included a provision for photo organising in your grandmothers estate planning you are quickly able to locate and pass on some images to a third party to arrange in a slide show for you so that you can avoid additional emotional strain during your grieving period.

When a loved one passes on, often you want to reflect and honour their lives with a photo slide show at a funeral or memorial service. Searching for images during a time of grief is not only heart breaking but stressful with a tight time limit. We encourage people to include a provision to get their images organised when they are undergoing estate planning.

Scenario 3. {Share} 

Your Nana calls to ask how the kids Easter Parade hat’s looked last week.

What could happen if your photos are unorganised:  You can’t remember if you took pictures on your phone or camera and you have no idea where the cords are. You tell her you will send them through another time. She never gets to see them when the phone and all 1340 images on it is lost the following month.

What would happen if your photos are organised:  You had already shared the photo file with her on a sharing site so you just remind her to log in.   Then with a quick trip to the computer and you whip up a cloth shopping bag with a great photo of the kids in their hats on it. The gift of a bag with the image is delivered to her in a few weeks.

If you are unorganised and can’t remember if you took pictures on your phone or camera, or you can’t find the cords or worse still the phone got stolen or the camera broke you can’t share images with friends and family. Simple systems used each month will help you keep on top of mountains of memories.

To put it plainly The Filing Fairies encourage you to ORGANISE your images so you can readily UTILISE and ENJOY them. You can see our photo filing packages on our services page.

Below is an example of some of things we do in our photo filing projects;

Organise & modernise

• Convert slides, negatives and prints to digital
• Create folder structures
• File images into folders
• Group like with like e.g. special events and holidays
• Re name images with unique meaningful names

Utilise (i.e. use)

• Create:
  • Photo books
  • Slide shows
  • Canvas art
  • A family blog
  • A feature wall of frames
  • T-shirts, coffee mugs etc etc

ENJOY (Relish, delight, savour, appreciate, treasure)

• With your precious memories on display you will enjoy reliving the special moments in your life
• Share favourite memories with friends and loved ones on social media or photo sharing sites

Finally and most importantly with your photos organised it is easy to perform straight forward backups each month so you can rest easy that your precious irreplaceable images are secure and safe.

Have you ever experienced a similar scenario? You are welcome to share here in our comments; your experiences can be valuable for all of us.

Have a magical day

Mara