Photo Organization Challenge!!

So this weeks challenge at Victoria Maria FB page was to organize your photos... I am of the age  where we honestly don't print a lot of photos... But I have a external hard drive full of them! I wanted to take a moment and share with you how I organize my digital photos so that I am able to retrieve them very quickly.

First, Let me me start by saying... I am a "Project Life" style scrap'r. I am currently doing my PL once a week and therefore my photo storage is set up that way. Seems like a lot of work? Actually, its a lot easier once you get set up.

I have set up a file on my desktop that is named "2015" (On my hard drive are the previous years and every year on January 1st I back the year off onto my hard drive and clear the space on my computer for the following year) Within the "2015" folder you will find the months of the year (YES! All 12) I usually set this file up January 1st. Within the month folder you will find a folder for EVERY MONDAY.

I generally sit down on Sunday nights and off load my pictures into the "Monday folder" of that week. I am not going to lie there are some weeks that I am a failure... But with technology and my handy dandy cell phone that keeps me organized and tells me what day I took the photo I am able to quickly get back on track.

The next question that seems to come up a lot when doing the week style Project Life is "What do you do when there is a Holiday/Special Event that week?" My answer is "They get there own page" So with this thought... They also get a folder in my week folder.  Just last week my daughter had a field trip to the Zoo. In the "April 27th" file there is not only the weeks pictures there is a file called "April 29th-Zoo" with all of the Zoo photos inside. This way when I sit down to do my packets (Packet Video) I am able to create the "week" spread as well as the "special event" and I am guaranteed not to mix the 2 (i.e. duplicating pictures).

Lastly, I have 2 additional files in the "2015" folder. I have a "2015 Done" and a "Extra" folder. In the "2015 Done" folder you will find all the weeks that are done. This means I have printed and created the packets that way when I sit down to create additional packets then I am able to go right to the folder I am working on... and the last little folder is "Extra" in this folder I put my timeless pictures. Things I want to get into my scrapbook that just didn't fit in that week. (Timeless in my PL). These photos are not organized they are just in the file waiting to be used. Once I use them I move them over to the "2015 Done" that prevents me from using it more then once!!!

Once I have offloaded the photos from my electronic devices (Cause you know each scrappy lady has her cell phone, her quick camera, her nice camera, her mans cellphone, camera etc.) I am then able to move to step 2 of the process "Selecting & Printing".

Thanks for stop'n in,

Cacie