Clear the Clutter Challenge Day 9: Picture This!

Do you love pictures?  I love pictures.  A lot.  Honestly, there are photographs around here of things that I can’t even remember when or where or who they are.  But it wouldn’t be right to throw them away.  Right?!?  For Challenge Day 9, we are going to be talking about organizing your photos.

I recently read an article that really hit home with me.  The author said to imagine that your house was on fire and after you got your family out, you could only go back and get a set number of things.  It was a small number and it really made me think–what things would I choose and where would I find them?

A big part of the declutter and organize process that we’ve got going on here is trying to put important things in a place that not only makes sense, but is easily accessible.  I want to get rid of stuff so that I can find–and enjoy–the things we want to keep.

I always have plans to put pictures into frames and/or hang them up.  I keep putting it off because I tell myself that I need to have just the perfect photographs and just the perfect arrangement.  We aren’t perfect people however and I have decided to enjoy the pictures we have and replace them with different ones as we go.

So for Challenge Day 9, go get all of the printed photographs that you have and choose one spot to keep them all in.  Maybe you put them all in a box under the bed (mine used to be there), maybe you put them in a bedside drawer (also had some there), or maybe you put them all on a shelf (where ours are currently going).  Do whatever works best for you, but whatever you decide, do it today!  I have been buying photo albums a little at a time and putting the pictures into them for storage on a shelf.  I would like to scrapbook with a lot of them, but I decided it was better to have them in albums so that I could see what we have, rather than just throwing them in a box.

As far as digital photographs go, we store ours on an external hard drive and I have some that have been uploaded to online storage.  I would eventually like to have all of my favorites stored online for those “just in case” situations.  If you have a lot of digital photos, you may want to consider some online storage too!

If you have empty picture frames, put all of those in one place as well…preferably close to the photos (but it’s okay if you don’t have a space close enough for that).  Now make an effort to add photos to frames at least every other day and start finding places to hang them or set them out.  What is the point of trying to preserve all of these memories if they never get shared with anyone else?

For more tips on clearing the clutter and organizing along the way, please join the Clear the Clutter Challenge.  And don’t forget to let me in on your own progress!!