Welcome to It's Just Stuff's #whatsonyourmindwednesday guest blogs. Every week #TeamIJS is inviting one of our Preferred Partners to share what is on their minds as it relates to the services they provide and the connection to helping anyone struggling with organizing and executive functioning skills.
This week we invited SurroundUs to share some incredible tips to get your paper files digitized and digital files more organized. SurroundUs is located in the Greater Boulder area but works with clients all around the world...yes, around the world...and offers a variety of options from workshops that will give you all of the tools you need to do it yourself as well as full service assistance. While computers have Search capabilities, there is no doubt that we all have spent far too much time hunting for that one photo or Word document. If you are interested in any of their services please click HERE .
5 Pro Tips to Help You Tackle Digital Spring Cleaning
It’s no secret that for many, spring cleaning is the perfect opportunity to tidy up and get organized. While it feels great to lighten the load and finally get life back in order, one major area is often neglected by most people: digital clutter.
In our current age, digital clutter is a serious, rapidly growing issue that we all face. It has become increasingly important to dedicate time & effort to managing our digital lives, especially that ever-growing collection of digital photos and videos on our various smartphones, cloud-based platforms and old storage devices. This year, use spring cleaning as an excuse to tackle your digital mess - the photos, videos and screenshots that have accumulated over the past year (or years!).
Here are the top 5 pro photo organizing tips to help you tackle digital spring cleaning:
1. Commit to a monthly check-in.
The best way to set yourself up for success in managing your digital photos and videos? Commit to a frequent check-in. Set a monthly alarm or reminder on your phone to do a quick scan of your system once a month. This may seem like a daunting task, but devoting 5-10 minutes each month to checking in on your collection can save you loads of time from playing catch up later on.
2. Only keep the best.
Your smartphone is an awesome resource for capturing quality shots, but it's easy to get a little too snap happy, leaving you with a cluttered and untidy photo collection. While conducting your monthly check-in, make sure to search for duplicates or near duplicates. Be picky and selective about which photo from the series you decide to keep. Choose only one photo from the series to keep, two maximum.
3. Get rid of screenshots.
Are you constantly taking screenshots of things you want to remember? Screenshots, while handy, can cause a lot of camera roll clutter. Each month, go through your photo collection to scan for screenshots. If the image is no longer needed, make sure to delete it. If it is still needed, move it to a labeled note in your phone's note keeping application. Learn how to do this by downloading a Clutter Free Photo Tip!
4. Import emailed or texted photos.
Consider any photos sent from friends and family. Have you taken time to import these to your own photo collection? If intentional time isn't set aside to do this, it can be easy to forget about these photos and they may never make it to your own collection. Remember: keep only the best and delete the rest. The process of importing will look different for each photo platform, so make sure you are up to date with your photo management platform's most effective method.
5. Favorite the best photos from the month.
Your smartphone makes it easy to capture a lot of photos - sometimes too many photos. We often end up with so many photos of the same things that it's hard to locate favorites. Spending time each month marking photos in your collection as favorites will help to differentiate them from the others. This makes it easy to share and enjoy your favorite moments from any occasion without becoming overwhelmed by a potential large number of overall images captured.
Do these 5 steps still seem like too much digital clutter to tackle on your own?
Finally, there’s a solution to organize your photos across all your different devices! Register for our best-selling course, DIY Digital Photo Organizing in the month of April and save $100 with code: spring100. PLUS receive a bonus Q&A session with SurroundUs CEO and photo organizing guru, Jordan Babeon, on May 5 at 2pm ET or May 7 at 1pm ET. Register by clicking HERE before this bonus offer expires on the final day of April!
No time to manage your digital mess, DIY style?
No sweat. Let the team of organizing pros at SurroundUs Services help you transform your digital mess into the photo collection of your dreams, one that can be effortlessly enjoyed by you and your family for years to come! Book your free consultation today.