Dealing with the Guilt of "Photo Neglect"

If you have challenges with managing your family photos, believe me, you’re not alone. I have met so many people who sheepishly admit that they don’t know how to get the photos from their digital camera to their computer. Others have gotten them onto their computer but don’t know what to do after that. A third group of people go one step further and get their digital photos printed only to have them pile up in a shoebox. Before you know it, the backlog of photos feels like a huge project that’s weighing on you. “Maybe I’ll get to it when I’m retired and don’t have anything else to do,” you think.

We’ve all been there. We love to take photos, we love having photos and we even thought that digital cameras were going to cure our photo challenges. It turns out that digital photos have made the whole task of “photo management” more complicated! What are we to do????

Here’s a plan for photo management that’s worked for me:
1. Take lots of digital photos
2. Download them on your computer (back them up, too, so you don’t lose everything if your hard drive crashes). For a back up service, try SmugMug
3. Make a big photo book for the year with all the best photos (click here and click on "Book Ideas" at the top for ideas for photo books). Shutterfly and Picaboo both offer great photo book services.
4. Copy all your photos for the year (even those that weren’t included in the book) on to a CD or DVD disk. When you get your photo book, adhere a photo CD pocket on the inside of the back cover and place the disk inside. Click here for purchasing photo CD pockets (type in search box) or click here for a way to make CD pockets.
5. You can even make multiple copies of the book so your children can each have their own as they grow up and leave home.

With this system, there’s no need to print photos and have them pile up in shoeboxes. It feels great to not have “photo guilt” hanging over your head anymore. It doesn’t take that much time, it’s not that hard, and it’s incredibly satisfying to see your family enjoy your photo books. On top of all this, it’s a lot of fun to turn your photos into a beautiful book. Try it -- you’ll get hooked.