I loved Shelley Murray’s blog on this — When we come off a great vacation, what is the first thing we do? Unpack, throw the laundry in and start the washing machine. The process continues until done, folded neatly and placed in the right dresser in the right room.
If we think about our smartphone photos like we think about laundry, we might do a better job of corralling the chaos. It is too bad those photos don’t smell if you don’t take care of them!
My mind reverts to how many photos are in my camera roll…aaarrrggghhh! If only I could be organized enough to make this process happen on a regular basis and not just coming off a great vacation.
Shelley’s blog was about her desire to get her phone photos in order – that seemed to be the clogging up place, which might be true for many of us. It certainly is for me. In fact, it “stinks” that I can’t find the one photo I want when I want it, and there are way too many in my camera roll and I don’t know which ones I want to save….and I don’t have time to do it all….and…
Doing anything about this problem seemed like a huge task to Shelley – and I understand. As she said, part of her didn’t even want to look at the mess created on her camera roll – just continue living in denial with the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality.
But she faced her fear – brave lady that she was – and outlined her commitment to spend just 15 minutes daily getting her phone photos in order. She set a reminder on her phone for a time in the evening – when it went off, she sat down with a warm cup of tea (or summer might call for an iced drink) and spent her 15 minutes.
OK, I am thinking about this…maybe daily until I get it under control and then I can back off to maybe once a week – woohoo, that is enticing!
I felt her pain – and was considering her challenge to do this. But I knew the big barrier for me: What Would I Do during those 15 minutes? Had to work that out and that seemed overwhelming. But I worked through her blog directions….there is hope.
I grabbed her process and reduced it a bit.
First, it uses the Forever.com account – and that is free for those who want to try it out. I happen to have already gone through the free option and loved it so much, I committed to purchase the permanent storage and have fully jumped into it. But her process is easily done with the free sign-up account.
Here’s the abbreviated version of her process (which I fully recommend):
#1 – Sign up for a Forever free account (or if you already have Forever, you are good-to-go) by clicking HERE. It gives you 2GB of FREE storage and a $20 coupon.
#2 – Download the FREE Forever App from the App Store or Google Play HERE
#3 – Watch this short video that Nick Kelsh, acclaimed photojournalist, and Shelley put together to show you the options available within the Forever phone/Ipad app HERE
What I got from this great “brief but packed” video:
- There are two options to use in getting your photos into your Forever account.
- Upload individual photos from your cameral roll into your Forever account. Select your “keepers”, or
- Set your app to automatically upload all photos from phone to Forever account (you will sort and delete in the Forever Library of photos).
NOTE: “Backup” means uploading all photos currently on camera roll and “Automatic” selection refers to photos you take from here on out. Benefit? You never lose your photos. Now you just work in your Forever account to delete many photos at one time (as Nick demonstrated). And yes, you can work on your Forever “library” of photos from your phone (easy-peasy)!
- IMPORTANT – be sure to delete the photos on camera roll once they go to your Forever account. Do it in sections – easier that way.
OK – what’s that smell? Could it be your “backed-up” overloaded Camera Roll on your smartphone?
Luckily, you have a mechanized process (like doing your laundry) that you can now adopt and use on a regular basis.
I have a friend who processes her smartphone photos at the end of the week (and yes, she has darling grandkids that she sees regularly so she has a ton of photos) – and then she puts back on her phone just the ones she wants to “show off” to friends. Not so many and easy to find them and they are the “besties”. I want that, too….so here I go! Jump in with me to do our laundry – we will feel fresh and clean afterwards, I just know it!
