Recently during an organizing class I was leading, a woman asked me for tips on organizing her photos. She said she got rid of doubles and bad pictures. She organized them by categories and people. Lastly she placed them in storage bins and labeled the outside.
Then she said… “What do I do next?”
First of all I was so proud that she had gotten that far. It was a feet in itself to tackle years and years worth of photos! She put in all this work and yet she didn’t feel done.
After talking to her it made me realize that all to often we get caught up in the “What Comes Next?”
She had her pictures categorized and stored properly. If she wanted a certain photo or set of photos she would most certainly know where they are. Even more importantly, if something happened to her, her husband and children would be able to make sense of the photos. Yet she still didn’t feel that level of completion she was after.
Some of us can’t afford to get all of our pictures scanned or don’t have the time for intricate scrapbooks. I think just working on simply putting the pictures in albums will work wonderfully for her, however she needs to allow herself the satisfaction of feeling that this project is COMPLETE.
There has to come a time when we can say “I organized enough! If I have time to go above and beyond that is fine, but I am satisfied with where I am at now.” Award yourself with the satisfaction of a job well done. Dear readers, there are a million ways you can “perfect” an organizing project but perfect comes with a hefty price.
You must determine when enough is Enough!
Do you have any organizing projects you feel aren’t complete but it is technically done?
Are you getting caught up in doing things perfectly?
Are you overwhelming yourself by not allowing a project to be considered complete?
[photo: Mr. T in DC]
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Top Tip, avoid the cost of scanning and just set up your digital camera looking down on any well lit surface (natural bright light is ideal) and the snap away. Take a picture of all your old photo’s then upload and crop alter etc to get the picture you want to save. I use Picasa from Google but any basic photo shop will do. Getting technical you could use artificial bright light but just make sure the camera is set ti the light source type. Enjoy.
We have all of our pictures from 2004 onward taken digitally, but we are planning to create small sets of our previous photos and scan a few sets per year. By the time we move into our fifth wheel, we should have completely digitized our photos, and we can share them with all of our kids. It’s a long project, but we are organizing each step along the way with six years to get everything done.
That is the way to do it! If I end up sending my photos in to be scanned I will do the same, just small batches at a time. And what a great way to be able to share copies with all of the kids, and they won’t have to be burdened with figuring out who gets waht or having them scanned themselves.
Are you getting caught up in doing things perfectly? This is something I have had to recognize as a problem for me. I’m a bit of a perfectionist and have high expectations of myself, and these things cause me to stop dead in my tracks and become overwhelmed with projects. I feel like if I can’t get it done perfectly then it’s not worth starting…. all or nothing. It’s a big fat roadblock that I am working through.
You can do it Abby! I do believe the overwhelm does keep us from starting but once you do start it feels so much better. Try starting with something small like a drawer and see where that takes you.
That’s why I hate laundry… cause its never complete!
But those photo boxes look fabulous.. Now I want to organize mine too.
There are organizing projects that I technically complete, but they are never quite done. There is always the maintenance, which is where I get into trouble.
{ 4 trackbacks }