Last week I introduced the concept of "Organizing Forward", which is setting up a system going forward from today, to give you the confidence to eventually go back and tackle your mess of beautiful memories.

Since digital photos (mostly on our phones) are a big challenge, let's tackle those first. Questions to ask yourself...

what do I do with my digital photos after I take them? Do I put them on my computer? Do I leave them on my phone? On a memory card? External hard drive? Can I find them?
how often do I download my pics into my photo "system" (do I even have one)?
what would I like to be able to do with my pics? Photo books? Share with Family? Displays?
are my photos backed up in the event of a computer crash, phone crash or fire?

Step one is finding a good photo management system that addresses your needs. A good system will make your photo life easier AND save you time. There are many systems out there, some are excellent, some aren't. My advice is DO YOUR HOMEWORK. I'm a HUGE advocate of owning your own original pics versus sending them off into the cloud. The cloud is an excellent BACKUP system, which is also something you need.

A good system today will:

allow you to organize your pics in BOTH a topic/folder/tag style and a calendar style so you can easily search for them
automatically or with a cord and a few clicks, bring your phone pics directly into the system
allow you to edit pics in the system
will use the metadata (data that is automatically coded into your digital pics by your camera) to help you organize your pics
include options such as ratings and face tags
will work on or with all of your devices (PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, iPad) AND be flexible if you change devices
be able to handle both regular photos and videos
include a really nice delete key (ok they all do that, but most of us need to use it more)

I have my favorites. My latest is a system called Mylio. It automatically uploads my phone pics to my Mylio system on my computer, just by turning it on. Sweet! I also love that it works on both PCs and Macs.

Organizing forward is all about getting started. For your digital photos, all you need to do is select a system and start using it. Because most of us haven't taken 100's of pics yet this year, it will be super manageable to play around in your new system with the few you have taken.

Once you get comfortable...beautiful memories, here we come!

Need a jump start? I'm here for ya!

'Organizing Foward' Part 2: Beautiful memories, here we come! Let's find a system...