Laws of Order

A secret to organizing success: unpacking

Here's the rule: as soon as you come home, you must "unpack" your bags/pockets/whatever and put things where they belong. I know this is the last thing you want to do after being out all day, but if you can train yourself to quickly stash everything your home (or at least your entry area) will be as neat as a pin, AND you might even be able to find your keys. Make it easy on yourself by installing hooks for keys, coatracks, shoe storage, etc. right by the door you usually use. Put the charger for your cell phone there, and find yourself a nice tray or basket to keep your wallet or incoming mail or whatever it is you usually have in your hand when you walk in the door. I know it's a pain, but think of the time you will save by never having to hunt for your keys or cell phone. Plus, if someone drops in unexpectedly you won't break into a sweat trying to hide your mess.

I am guilty of violating this rule from time to time, and every time I regret it. I usually have a bag for work, a bag for my daughter's day care stuff, mail, keys, wallet, cell phone, and some groceries. Well, the other day I was grumpy and I decided it would be OK to dump everything inside the front door "just for now," and in so doing lost the only key to my bike. To go looking for it I had to rifle through all those different bags and now the entryway is a jumbled mess of books, papers, clothes, diapers, and other random stuff, and I STILL haven't found the key. Save your future self the headache of searching for stuff and take 2 minutes to unpack when you come home. And when you get to be your "future self" don't forget to admire your "past self" for doing you a huge favor.

Cool organizing tool or useless paper magnet?

I think this is a neat idea, but only for those who have tamed their natural tendency toward chaos. If you already have a mail system set up where things actually flow through rather than pile up, then this would be a good way to keep your horizontal surfaces clear, and that always makes your home look neat and clean. You could even designate areas for each person's mail (top right = me, top left = you, etc.) This thing looks more like art than an inbox, but that being said, imagine how it would look if you never removed anything from it. Yikes.

Via Charles & Marie.

Tackling your mountains of photos, Part II: Setting up your new system

Now that you are set up and ready to start sifting through all your old photos, it's time to start thinking seriously about how you want to deal with your photos from now on so you don't have to do this again. (I promise I'll get to the nitty gritty organization part soon, but this is very important!) Do this now and then you won't end up a huge pile up of photos again 6 months from now.

Digital photos
If you take most of your pictures on a digital camera, you won't have to worry as much about organization as you would with prints, but you will still need to set of a system so you don't overwhelm yourself with 10,000 pictures at the end of the year. Every time you upload photos from your camera, go through them and rate them, say, 1-4 stars. When you are done, delete the 1 star and 2 star photos. (If you are breaking out in hives at the thought of deleting photos, see my upcoming post on letting go of photos.) This is key for digital photos, because people take WAY more digital photos than they ever would with film, so you end up with a LOT more pictures to work with. The delete key is scary, but it is really your best friend. (Kind of like Terminator 2?)

Now, if you can spare an extra few minutes, tag the photos with keywords, such as the location, event, and people depicted. This takes a few more minutes, but you will love yourself for doing this when you want to find something again in the future. Imagine that you'd like to make a photo album for a friend 2 years from now; all you'd have to do is type in that person's name and every photo in which they appear would be listed for you. How cool would that be??

Finally, and most importantly, BACK UP YOUR PHOTOS. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you are the kind of person who would save photo albums from a burning house, then you need to have a backup system. If you care at all about your photos there is no excuse not to do this. Get an external disk drive, burn CDs, burn DVDs, and/or back up to an online photo site. I personally like Kodak's site for ease of use, and I have heard very good things about Shutterfly and Flickr. The added advantage of uploading to online sites is that you can share your photos with anyone you like, and some even offer services for making professional-looking photo albums. Even if you use an online photo sharing site though, you should still back up your photos on some other media.

By the way, if you burn CDs or DVDs, do yourself a favor and make a contact sheet of the photos so you know what is on the CD/DVD.

Film and Prints
If you prefer the look and feel of print photos, then you will need to decide how you want to store them (albums, shoe boxes, scrapbooks, etc.). When you get your film back and you're going through the photos for the first time, immediately throw away the losers. If it would look stupid in a frame or a holiday card, then it's probably not worth saving since you probably have so many superior shots. Then immediately label your photos with a photo safe pen, noting the date, place, event and people in the picture. Sure you remember all the details today, but if you've ever gone to another room and forgotten why you went there, then you know that your memory is fallible.

If you like to show off your photos for a few weeks, then slip them into a temporary album to protect them from dust and fingerprints (and loss). Then when you're done, move them to their permanent home. If this sounds like too much trouble, then use album pages with holes for binding, and just move the pages to a permanent binder album when you're done showing it off. You should also move the negatives to special album pages so you can keep them with the prints in the album. Whatever you do, don't store your photos in the envelopes they give you at the drugstore; those are just made of regular paper and not intended for long term storage. If your photos are worth passing down to future generations, then make sure your storage is acid-free and photo-safe. I usually go with Exposures, but your local professional photo shop should be able to set you up also.

Oh, and if they ask you at the store, DON'T get doubles. Decide on your reprints after you see what you've got on the film. Otherwise it's just a waste of paper and chemicals, and it's doubling the amount of stuff in your home!

Next time, taming the photo paper tiger....