3 reasons you haven’t done anything with your photos

25 Dec 3 reasons you haven’t done anything with your photos

Have you ever stopped to think about what it REALLY is that is preventing you from DOING something with your photos?  Why haven’t you created holiday/baby/family book?

If you’re like most people, you’ll be consuming all kinds of food over the next week or so, so how about some food for thought? In this blog I will address a couple of common reasons we resist DOING something with our photos and hopefully inspire you to give it a go in 2020.

I don’t have time for that – this is the number one reason people cite for not doing anything with their photos.  Be it organising photos, backing up photos or creating with photos. To this I say, with a little bit of consistency you can be organising your photos monthly, weekly or even daily as you take them so that when you sit down to create a project, you have everything ready at your fingertips. Read our photo organising recipe for more details.

I don’t prioritise it highly enough – when questioned further 100% of the people that said they didn’t have time, when they were honest with themselves, recognised that they could find time and the problem was really that they didn’t prioritise it. Too often this kind of project ends up in the ‘someday’ basket and we all know that ‘DAY’ doesn’t appear on any calendar! Then when they did think about starting the fear kicks in, which can quickly snowball into overwhelm. Read more on overcoming project overwhelm. Remember a little bit often is a lot less daunting than a massive project.

I want it to be PERFECT (and I don’t have time for that) – whether you don’t feel you have the technical or creative skills or you can’t seem to find the right supplier, anyone that has done self-improvement reading or learning will recognise that perfectionism is the enemy of productivity!

Having recognised the perfectionism trait in myself I can share this photo with you. It is my photo book collection. All the different shapes, sizes, widths, papers, styles, themes can give me anxious OCD attacks if I think about it too long, if I look at very early book designs, I often cringe in revulsion but quickly get lost in the content (aka the PHOTOS and the STORIES). Part of my job is to test out different design software and printing suppliers so that I can make recommendations, so I had to let go of being SO hung up on the consistency of my books ‘matching’ perfectly (you’re welcome!).

Here is the golden nugget that I would like you to takeaway: a FINISHED book brings me so much satisfaction and delight! Regardless of the size or shape, whether I forgot to (or was unable) to add a spine title, if it had a slight misalignment or a spelling mistake, the projects, whilst not perfect, are DONE and that’s what matters most.
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Can you relate to any of this? Do you struggle with perfectionism too?