WayForth is your trust moving company with our complete move solutions. Whether you are downsizing, packing and unpacking, or looking for storage, we got you covered. Check out our tailored solutions by contacting us today!

Feeling overwhelmed with organizing your photos? Organizing and purging photos is not an easy task. It can be overwhelming and sometimes it’s difficult to know what to keep and what to give away. Photos that were important to some family members don’t have the same value for others.

Here are four steps we’ve learned over the years when helping clients with their photos:

1. Gather All Your Photos

Start by gathering all the photos that are scattered about your house, this includes all photos that are in frames too. Photos migrate to many areas of our homes such as desks, bookshelves, refrigerator, drawers, and closets. Do a thorough search before beginning the next step. Gathering all photos from the start will set you up for success.

2. Sort the Keepers from The Tossers

Now that your photos are all together, survey all your framed photos and decide if you want to put each one back on display or not. If you’re ready for a change, take the photo out of the frame and add it to the pile. When looking at each photo, consider the following questions:

• Does the photo tell a story?
• Is it a flattering photo of me or my family/friends?
• Is it a duplicate?

Set your criteria and stick to it. Then, start look at your photos one at a time and toss the ones that don’t make the cut.

3. Sort Into Categories

Once you’ve tossed the photos you no longer want, the next step is to sort the ones that you do. Give some thought to what you want to do with your photos after they’re organized. This will help with the sorting.

If you’re making an album with photos of a special trip, you can collect all of those photos together. If you’re making photo books or boxes for each one of your children, sort them by child. You can sort according to beneficiary, for example all the photos you want to give to your son or daughter.

Once they’re sorted, you can digitize them, create albums, or put them in photo boxes. This is the hardest step, but the most gratifying.

4. Finish the Job

Take all tossed photos out to the trash immediately. Put gifted photos in envelopes and boxes marked for the recipient, seal them and make a plan to ship them asap. Store your keepers in an organized fashion – either in albums or photo boxes.

Pro tip

Trust your decisions and don’t give yourself time to second guess or change your mind. You know what you want to keep, and get rid of. Go with your gut and declutter your photos by starting today!

Looking to downsize? WayForth can help! WayForth is your professional home organizer and professional moving company dedicated to take the stress out of moving, so you can spend time on what matters most! To learn more about how our team can help you, contact us today!