Part One: Physical PhotosPart Two: Digital Photos Though I was glad to have our photos organized (and VERY glad to have them backed up), the real culmination of my photo organization project was this: making printed photo albums of our life together. You all know how important family stories are to me, and having an actual book to look through to help us tell those stories was the next logical step – and to me, well worth the time and expense. In turning to the project of family photo albums, my first decision was at what interval to print them. The vast majority of people seem to do yearly albums, but to me that seemed a bit excessive when I considered the full span of our (hopefully long) life together. Do I really want to have 60 photo albums on a shelf one day? While I would be exceedingly grateful to have 60 years of memories, I don’t think I need 60 albums. I settled on one album for every five years, beginning with the year we began dating (our senior year of high school). The first album would run 2005-2009, the second, 2010-2014, the third, 2015-2019, and on from there. I readily admit the editing is only going to get harder in the thick of these family years, but I like that a five-year boundary forces me to focus on the best, most poignant, and most illustrative memories. The albums will be heftier than they would be if we were to do annual albums, but in a more concise package! With our photos organized and the interval set, I found myself procrastinating on making that first album earlier this year. It took me a bit to figure out why, but I eventually realized: I was afraid of missing something

Part One: Physical Photo Organization If I had to guess, I imagine most of the people who’ve messaged me over the years asking for help with their photos were interested in this part of the process: digital photo organization. It’s awfully overwhelming, isn’t it? We take SO! MANY! PHOTOS! these days! It’s kind of shocking to compare the number of photos I took ten or even five years ago and the number I take now. (For example, we have 1,000 photos backed up from 2014, and 6,000 from 2019!) Of course, I had two adorable children in that time, which certainly doesn’t help. I do feel like I’ve gotten my arms around the situation, though, and I’m happy to lay things out for you today. The good news? It’s not hard! You can totally get your photos organized, and set up a system to keep them organized going forward. The bad news? In my experience, it’s a looooooooong, tedious process. Little by little, though, you’ll get there! Here are the steps I took to get our digital photos under control. Step 1 | Choose a photo back-up system. Though the actual organization of our photos has been great, this first step of backing them up was by far the most important to me. If you do nothing else while reading these posts, take this action! After considering various options, we chose to back up our photos with Amazon Photos. Unlimited photo storage is included with your Prime membership; we chose to pay $20 more a year to get 100 GB of video storage, as well. The system is super easy: download the Amazon Photos app, and every night you’re connected to Wi-Fi it will automatically upload your photos to your Amazon account. You can view them in the app or

If you’ve spent any amount of time here, you know that I’m engaged in an epic quest to organize our personal photos (and have been for almost a year). Many of you have expressed curiosity at my methodology and the processes I’m putting in place, and I’m happy to oblige – once I have everything wrapped up with a bow! In the meantime, though, I wanted to share one aspect we’ve got down pat, especially since I’m guessing it might be a pain point for some of you: Instagram photos! The photos I share on IG are some of my very favorites, so it makes sense that they’d be a priority to get off my phone and into our home. Each January, I order 48 to 72 of our favorite Instagram photos from the past year in the 4-inch size via Social Print Studio. (You can purchase them in sets of 24 for $12). They’re printed on velvety-matte paper, and I’ve found the quality to be good. I especially appreciate that you can upload from multiple accounts in the same order as long as you have the passwords, which is great because I choose favorites from John’s account and both my personal and public accounts. (If we need to round up to reach a number divisible by 12, I’ll add a few more copies of a print I know a family member or friend would love, then pop them in the mail once they arrive!) From there, I choose our favorite 24 photos from the past year, with a prejudice toward landscape- and adventure-focused shots, and pin them to a bulletin board in our kitchen. I love being reminded of so many beloved places, faces, and memories on the daily, and guests love looking at them, too! The ones from