A Professional Organizer Makes an Appointment With Herself to Get Organized

In March of 2010, I wrote a blog post called, "Ready for Spring Cleaning?" In that post, I talked about a basic organizing principle: Make an Appointment With Yourself to Get Organized.

The process of getting organized can be overwhelming. Most people are unsure as to where or how to begin. Making an appointment with yourself to get organized is a starting point. Carving out that time to chip away at a pile of papers or sort through your sock drawer is a necessary step towards de-cluttering your home and reaching your organizing goals.

A few weeks ago,  I got an email from my friend, Deb--the subject line said 'Photo Albums.' The email stated that she was blocking out some time one night to work on her photo albums--did anyone want to bring theirs and join her at her dining room table?

I read that email and later responded, "I'll be there..."

You know the phrase, 'The shoemaker's son has no shoes?' Well, sometimes Professional Organizers spend so much time organizing others, that projects of their own fall by the wayside. In my case, it would be photos and photo albums.

I have two small children and I take a ton of pictures and videos of them on my camera and iPhone. I download them but haven't always kept up with the ordering of pictures and placing them in albums. My relatives are constantly asking me for pictures of my kids. I've bought picture frames but don't have the pictures to put in them. The signs were there--it was time to make an appointment with myself to organize my photos and albums.

A few days before the photo album gathering I took inventory of what I had:

• one broken photo album (wear and tear from 2 kids flipping pages)
• two new photo albums (ordered months ago and still in the box they shipped in)
• pictures I had printed but not put in albums yet (already separated by child)

To prepare for 'Photo Night', I removed all the pictures from the broken album and sorted through and purged a few out. I removed all pictures from my first child's second album, too. I loaded all my photo albums and pictures into a large shopping bag and was ready to go.

I only worked on my albums for an hour and a half but got a lot accomplished. I managed to put all pictures from birth to two years old in the albums designated for my eldest child. Making this appointment with myself motivated me to keep working on this important project. The next night at my own dining room table, I finished putting the pictures of my oldest child in his albums.

My next steps are to:

• Sort and purge through pictures of my youngest child.
• Put them in chronological order
• Place them in the designated album
• Check the end of each album to see the last pictures I ordered. Go on iPhoto and order copies for relatives and the albums
• Give out pictures and place the rest in albums

My goal is to finish this project by the end of May. I will be making an appointment with myself each week to make that happen and I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Thanks, Deb for giving me the jumpstart I needed to organize my photos!