Day 21: Collect All The Digital Pictures

Read the previous entry in this series:  Day 20: Unpacking the Paper Pile or start at the beginning with the Introduction: 5 Ways Clutter Costs.

There is so much to say about organizing our digital lives that I barely know where to begin, except--I am grateful I don't have a phone. Sometimes I wish I had one--but most of the time I appreciate how much simpler my life is without one.

No, really.

This is one of those times. I take pictures with cameras which have SD cards. Pulling off my pictures is a simple matter of inserting an SD card into the computer, hooking up my external hard drive  and moving the files to their appropriate digital folders on the external hard drive directly. I never, ever want to have another hard drive failure like I did in early 2012. (I lost almost everything from 2011 because I'd been too lazy to transfer my pictures to my external hard drive.)

I had a bunch in this little keeper.

Then, I found a few more in a different drawer.

The worst one, of course, was the SD card actually in the camera. I had pictures going back to 2014 on it.

It took a while.

I organize my photos by year, then month. Within each month, I break things down into categories based on projects or the reason I took the photos. (Trees and sky, for example, or Emma's birthday, or closet.)

Exceptions are projects which span several months, like the "back hallway and stairs." I have sub-folders within, but I didn't fuss with those tonight. Tonight, I just got things roughly where they are supposed to go.

Good enough.

I've discovered some organizing guy named Andrew Mellon and watched a few videos. He was quite inspiring and helped me get some of my mojo back!  He reminded me that "like goes with like." So, I took all the SD cards I'm keeping and put them into this little storage thingy and put it in my drawer. (One was damaged, so I tossed it, another belonged to my son, so I gave it to him.)

And there.

Done.

Not quite the same thrill as decluttering something physical--but at least I know that all the cards are empty and the photos are transferred.

How about you?
Is this a daunting task--or is it easy for you to do?
Do tell!


Read the next entry in this series Day 22: Declutter Dvds, Cds, and other Media: Saying Goodbye to a Piece of Childhood.

********************************************************

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to catch them all. Sign up to have each post delivered to your e-mail.

Subscribe to Prairie Home Therapy

*********************************************************