Uncluttered Professional Organizing Blog

Collecting versus Curating

If you have been collecting family photos, it might be time for you to curate your collection. Curating is thoughtfully combing through pictures and organizing them in a way that tells the story of your family.

Photos are more than images. They are the gateway to the past that brings smiles and emotion to today. Curating your collection makes it easier to enjoy and share with others.

Here are five steps to organizing your collection:

1. Set time aside. You don’t have to do it all in one day. Depending on how many photos, or should I say boxes of photos, you have it could take several days or weeks to sort them. Give yourself time to savor the process instead of trying to rush through.

2. Find a dedicated spot to work. Choose a space you can occupy for the duration of the project. It might be a dining room table or a spare bedroom. It’s inefficient to shuffle stacks of photos every time you want to work on them. Plus, you don’t want to cause additional wear and tear to older photos that are already fragile.

3. Make a discard pile. Make a quick pass through all your photos and discard duplicates, blurry photos and ones that aren’t interesting or meaningful. Any photo can be part of a collection, but curated images and stories have meaning. And don’t hesitate to pull out a couple pictures to frame or add to a digital display.

4. Sort photos based on your system. There’s no one right way to organize your photos. What makes the most sense to you is how it should be organized. Chronologically works for some people while others prefer to categorize family photos by holidays. The thought of grouping all the Christmas photos together might not work for someone who prefers to organize by family. Choose the system that makes most sense to you and start grouping photos in your collection accordingly.

5. Add a few details. It might be obvious to you who’s in the photos but as the curator of a collection you’re preserving family history. Adding a few details to the back of a photo including names and dates will help those stories come alive for years to come.

Photos are more than images. They are the gateway to the past that brings smiles and emotion to today. Curating your collection makes it easier to enjoy and share with others.

These steps can help you start the process of curating your photos and your family memories. It can be a daunting task depending on the size of your collection. My team and I love this process. If you’re stuck or at a standstill with your photo collection an email to me at linda@unclutterednw.com and let’s talk about what’s on your mind.

Linda Deppa

Linda Deppa has seen more clutter than you could make in your lifetime - and found a place for all of it.

As a Certified Professional Organizer, Linda has helped hundreds of clients experience the joy that comes from reclaiming their space, and the relief of bringing their shoulders down from their ears when they realize they no longer feel stressed walking into a cluttered home or office.

Linda’s success in working with clients goes beyond her ability to organize their possessions. Her own life experiences, including a life-altering car accident, gives her a deep desire to help each of her client’s live life to the fullest. What starts as an organizing project with Linda often leads to mindset shifts that impact other areas of their lives.

Linda is a member of the National Associate of Productivity and Organizing Professionals and current President, past Vice President, Treasurer and Membership Director of the Seattle-based NAPO chapter.

A skilled presenter and motivational speaker, consider hiring Linda to speak at your next conference or event. Contact Linda via email: linda@unclutterednw.com

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