This guest post is by photographer and organizer, Regina Mountjoy. I’m excited to feature her because she’s a guest speaker in the Creative Haven on April 27th. Would you like to be there? Check out the Haven. And enjoy!

Introduction

I’m a professional photographer who produces and archives on average about 10,000 images a month. By necessity I’ve created a system that allows me to efficiently file, archive and retrieve those images for myself and for my clients. The system I have developed over the years has worked well for me professionally and is the same system I use for my personal images.

Why is it worth having a filing system for your digital photos?

The whole point of taking pictures (in my opinion) is to look at them after the moment has passed and to recreate special memories. A filing system allows you to keep your visual memories in order and easily accessible. It also keeps you from feeling buried with yet another task lurking around the corner draining you of creative energy.

If you do not consistently edit, file and backup your files, your beautiful images will be lost in the mass of the unfiled and unidentified. Guilt will gradually creep in around the edges of your thoughts and even begin to take away your joy in having made the images in the first place. Worse yet, if not sorted and backed up, you may lose your files if/when your computer crashes or CF card is corrupt or phone is dropped in a toilet.

Take heart! Creating a good working system is not as daunting as it might seem. And once you create it and put it in place organizing your images will become so easy it will be habit forming!

Categorizing (or organizing) your digital photos

I keep my files in chronological order. We have enough family and personal events that I have an individual folder for each event/shoot. Each individual event folder is named with the date and event.

Inside each folder I have at least 2 folders: one for the original images and one of the final edit (or processed images). If I’m really on top of it there is also a folder for my very favorite images to use in the year’s slideshow. I always number the folders so they are in order. I really don’t like to think much when I’m sorting!

Along with the event folders inside the main yearly folder I also have one “catch-all” folder for all the miscellaneous photos. Just as it is essential to have a “junk” drawer, I have a “misc.” folder for each year. It contains the same interior folders as the individual event folders with a few extras. Note: if looking through all the misc. images I see a group that can be put into its own folder I do so.

If you don’t really have “events” and are just snapping randomly a few here and there on any given day, it might be best to keep your files in monthly folders. Then you can edit at the end of each month. (I would recommend putting the month’s number at the beginning of each title so the folders stay in order. But I would personally also include the name of the month. I like to label things as clearly as possible so I can quickly identify the folder I need.)

Editing your digital photos

Putting your images in folders labeled by date is very straightforward. It seems that the editing part is where most people get hung up. The big issue seems to be the getting rid of. “How can you delete your images??!” people ask me. It is really hard- I agree! So I don’t!

I edit from the other direction. My first sweep is to select the strong shots. I don’t think about it or use this time to even enjoy the image that comes later. I go through and take the strongest images and put them in their own folder. Then I look through those images and if there are shots that are similar, I decide on the best of the set and move the others back into the “original files” folder. So I’m not deleting anything. I’m just putting the strongest images into one place. I’m separating the awesome from the okay. From the final selection set I choose a few of my absolute favorites – the ones that really make my heart go pitter-patter – and open them up in Photoshop to tweak a bit.

Extra tip about color conversions: If you are interested in converting some of your final edits/favorites to BW, here is my philosophy: If your reaction to an image is a “wow- that color is gorgeous!” then it should stay in color. Otherwise it should be converted to a high-contrast black and white image so that the colors don’t distract the eye from the shapes, expression, texture and emotion of the image.

How often to edit/file you digital photos

If I don’t keep on top of my professional files weekly I am buried. Yuck. My personal photos, however, require only monthly attention.

Just like doing bookkeeping, laundry, dishes, processing email, etc. it is MUCH less daunting to edit as you go. I encourage friends and clients to at least file their digital photos as soon as they have finished shooting a set and ideally take the extra 30 minutes to edit also. And if you are just shooting intermittently I recommend copying images from your phone/laptop/camera at least once a month.

Edit as you feel inspired. I love to do this while we are watching a favorite movie or traveling or on a quiet night with a glass of wine and great music.

You are much more likely to use your photos and can access them super quickly when they’ve been sorted. If you have a system that makes sense to you, you will much more likely to keep up with it. If the system I use is not intuitive and/or does not flow for you or if it does not inspire you to create a system that works for your unique creative brain, schedule a session with Jen. She can gently and adeptly guide you through the process of creating a system that works for you. I’m speaking from personal experience here!

Backing up your files

It is essential that you realize that your computer IS going to crash. (Jen here: Agreed. It’s just a matter of when.) I have lost more images than I care to mention due to carelessness and CF card + laptop failure. So I am very disciplined about filing my images consistently and ALWAYS having my images in at least two places. It only takes losing your images once to kick this habit into gear. I personally have a mirrored RAID system. My best friend uses an external drive and “time machine” for her mac setup. Definitely peruse Jen’s blog post about preventing a backup debacle. Or do a Google search for backup solutions. Get your images on a cloud. So many great options. I am using Dropbox quite a bit these days for sharing photos with family and clients.

Use your photos!

I feel like we are experiencing a bit of withdrawal and are starting to crave tangible forms of the images we love. Here are a few ideas for getting those pretty pics off the computer into the “real” world. Don’t over-think it! Just play a little!

Photo Books (http://www.mpix.com/products/photobooks/photoalbums)
Canvas Gallery Wraps (http://www.mpix.com/products/homedecor/gallerywraps)
Charm Jewelry (http://www.kimbrastudios.com/)
Tipsey metal art (http://www.alittletipsy.com/2011/11/pictures-on-metal-11×14-metal-art.html)

Regina Mountjoy has run her own fine art photography business, Recherche Photography, for over ten years and has a thorough working knowledge of the wedding & portrait photography business. She’s been passionate about organization her entire life! She’s read books about it for FUN! It is her favorite thing to do at home and for others. She’s always helped friends and family declutter their homes and implement organizational systems.

What photo organizing techniques do you use?

4 comments

My mini feng shui arrangement

I love this collection. It’s sits just next to my monitor on an apple crate.

Apparently, the center space of any room is the good fortune gua and is associated with earth colors and the earth element. Ask me what this means — I won’t be able to tell you. But knowing this inspired me to create this tiny altar of earth-toned, earth-made objects.

The Anderson Pottery chickadee has been a family treasure and was given to me by Inspired Spouse. The heart glass is from my mom. And the quartz stone was carefully polished by my dad-in-love.

Just looking at this collection makes me happy, even if I know squat about feng shui.

Do you have any feng shui remedies in your home office?

What are they?

Feel free to share below how they came to be and what’s in them. I’m no feng shui expert, but I love learning about you!

4 comments

The meditation corner in my office

After some planing and thinking, I listened to my heart’s longing for a sacred space I could sit and meditate and dream in. Beside this table is a chair to lounge in while I look out the window at the birds and trees.

Every single object has been lovingly chosen. Each one has a story. The pink candle was used at the 4-day retreat I led in February. The finger labyrinth I made with some cherished friends and I use it all the time. The orchid was a gift to myself for my recent birthday. When I sit in the space, I’m accompanied by those who love me.

I used to long for a space like this. Now that I have one, I feel supported in my spiritual journey in ways that weren’t possible before. Best of all, I can see it from my desk, so it’s always beckoning me away from the draw of the Internet.

Do you have a mediation corner?

If you are just dreaming of one, what does it look like in your mind’s eye?

If you have created one, how do you feel when you spend time in it and what have you placed there?

One comment

My word for the year

After choosing an inspiration word for 2012, I wrote it on a rock and placed it where I look every day — just under my monitor.

Having it there reminds me what I’m striving to create and staying opening to. Every day. It’s a tiny little altar for my intention.

Have you chosen a word for the year?

If you haven’t, there’s no reason why you can’t today. What do you want to create this year?

If you have chosen a word (or words) this year, how do you remind yourself of what they are?

3 comments

Brains and organizing have a lot in common. Both are systematic, both are creative, and both allow you to do things that would be challenging otherwise.

Your brain: totally unique and 8.7% similar

Thing is: all our brains are different. My wacky ADD brain is nothing like my Type-A friend’s brain or Inspired Spouse’s research-nerd brain or my artist friend’s wooooooowee! creative brain.

This is good. Brain diversity is a good thing. These differing strengths allowed early humans to support a tribe with varied needs. It would be horrible if all brains worked in exactly the same way. (Just think of the Borg.)

And while our brains are all unique, we exhibit certain characteristics that make us similar. Just look at a few personality and learning theories:

• 9 kinds of intelligence (Multiple Intelligence)
• 16 personality types (Myers-Briggs)
• 9 types (Enneagram)
• 12 sun signs (Zodiac)

Looking at just these four, we can say there’s an average of 11.5 different types of people-brains in the world.

Don’t be assimilated

The problem is that most organizing experts out there have one kind of brain: the systematic one. They get how organizing works intrinsically.

Maybe you’ve read some of these well-intentioned people. Their words are logical. Their organizing ideas are straightforward. Their techniques are totally rational. But the concepts don’t work or you can’t keep them going.

If this sounds familiar, you might think that something’s wrong with you. But there isn’t. You just have a different kind of brain than that expert does. In fact, there’s only a 8.7% chance that their system will work for your brain.

As a non-linear person, I have tried three different experts’ approaches to time management. I’ve read countless “get organized” magazine features. I own at least a dozen organizing books by American, British and Australian experts. Although I get some neato ideas, I’ve failed at following their organizing plans (despite my best efforts). And I mean flat-out failed.

Something didn’t click.

Where the click happens

Your own brain. Have you felt that? When something works, it clicks. The synapses fire and the system clicks because your brain is happy.

When you know how to access the resources of your own brain, organizing becomes an effective, creative activity. Satisfying. Joyful, even. And not nearly has hard as learning to apply someone else’s techniques.

How to create your own organizing connections

The shift looks like this:

“Oh, that expert is organized.  —>  I should try to copy them.”

to:

“Oh! I’m already organized inside my brain? Cool!  —>  Now I can use what I know about my brain to organize my space.”

If you’ve struggled with organizing in the past, it might seem unnerving to rely on yourself instead of the experts, but it’s quite effective.

Real-life examples:

One of my clients realized that she was a primarily visual person. Her brain was strongly influenced by visual data, images, and colors. When she became more aware of this, she started to keep her desktop clearer to minimize distractions and also integrated colors into her filing system. She was amazed at how much easier she could find things with these small brain-friendly changes.

Another client realized that she had certain tasks arise each month that were critical to complete. Her brain is pretty systematic and it really likes having her lists visible so she can check things off with a special pen. So she made a wall chart that listed each of them and now she checks things off as they get completed. Another happy brain!

In both cases, my clients became aware of a specific brain preference and integrated it into their organizing.

Can you see how different this is from reading an expert’s advice?

Why I’m a different kind of expert

Although I’m a professed organizing expert, I don’t give you organizing advice (hardly ever). Instead, I facilitate the process of discovering what your brain likes and integrating these discoveries into your organizing. In fact, I’m teaching a free class about this very topic next week.

I celebrate your unique brain! So can you!

So what next?

If you want to start befriending your brain,

• start by making a list of things you love to do and see what themes emerge
• take an online test for the personality/intelligence theories above and see where you land
• take part in the Organize Anything class I’m teaching next week (details here)

Ultimately, the more awareness you have, the more you can use it. Most of all, stop fighting your brain and start seeing it for the gift it is.

You’re amazing!

There is nothing wrong with you or how you organize. When you can integrate your brain’s strengths into your organizing, you won’t believe how much happier your brain is — and how much happier you are in work and in life!

2 comments

Where we’ve been — where we’re going

Inspired Home Office and I, we’ve been using a desk that’s been *fine* for the last two years. I put it together myself. It’s really fine. It’s big. It’s the right color. It’s just — something’s not right anymore.

I have this theory that as your business matures, your space grows grow along with it. The current desk cost me a hundred dollars to put together: two IKEA legs, a 2-drawer file cabinet and a closet door I bought at the Habitat ReStore.

It works. Did I mention that already? It works, but lately it feels cobbled together. Just like my business felt two years ago. They fit together back then, my cobbled-together business and matching desk. Two peas in a pod.

Before that, I used a scratched-up yard sale desk as my business home base. I bought it when all I has was $30 in cash in my pocket and I needed something, anything with drawers right now for my start-up. Compared to that desk, my current, right-height/right-color desk is a vast improvement.

Encountering resistance to making positive change

Today, it feels like Inspired Home Office is ready for her first pair of heels, her first work suit. My money-fear, my inherited potato-famine fearful side says, “But what if we can’t afford it?” What if what you really need is too expensive?” This voice shows up because it wants me to be cautious. It wants me to not stretch too much into unknown territory. If I get too good a desk, that might mean that the business will get too mature for me to handle. Scary. This voice wants me to be safe.

Go toward what you want

And yet, that’s exactly why I want a different, more me desk — so I can grow. Having a visual, tangible reminder of my dreams, well, that helps encourage movement. If I got a desk that wasn’t cobbled together and missing a leg, what would that tell the Universe about how seriously I take my business? What would this new, improved desk tell me every time I walk in here in the morning to work?

“I’m ready for more.” I’d be saying, “C’mon, business, let’s help a few more people this month that we did last month. Let’s give our clients even more support and encouragement. Let’s run like a business, not a hobby.”

Matching the outside with the inside

There’s nothing wrong with a desk that is good enough. This isn’t judgment on myself or on other businesses that aren’t at this place yet.

It’s also not a money-buys-happiness thing. It’s about consistency – Inspired Home Office has matured a lot in four years. We’re not a start-up anymore and it’s time for the space to match that.

Plus, I just keep thinking about it. When I keep thinking about something, I know it’s wise to pay attention. It means is that I’m ready to be less cobbled together. After four years in business, I’m ready to have my space more deeply reflect the competent, creative, loving professional that I’ve become.

Tolerate not knowing how it will turn out (it’s good for you)

That said, I have no idea what my new desk will look like — that’s what creating a vision is for.

So that’s my next step — dreaming up what I want it to look like. If you happen to use Pinterest, I’m creating an inspiration board to collect ideas. I can create a budget. I can pay more attention to the critical features I currently use that I’d want replicated in a future desk. I can make calls and do research. It could be months before I act, but that’s the creative process: 80% dreaming and 20% action. I just know I’m ready.

How about you?

Have you ever chosen a desk (or other furniture) as a way of marking a transition in your life or career? Feel free to share below!

7 comments

Sentry Safe Guardian Storage Box

Not to spook ya, but somewhere in the dark recesses of your filing cabinet are documents you know you want to have better protected.

Your office inventory — the one your insurance agent told you to make just in case the whole place burns to cinders — is filed away in a folder marked “Office Inventory.” This inventory lives in a cabinet which will melt to a puddle of blistered beige goo if the unthinkable happened. Ditto your tax returns, your Microsoft Stocks, and your 11th grade yearbook signed (with love and kisses) by Danny Hammond.

You might not need (or have room for) an honest-to-goodness safe, but most of us do have things which ought to be kept in a place slightly more secure than the usual cardboard accordion folder. Here, then, is a dandy answer!

Well, technically, it’s the red thing under the cat.

The Sentry Safe Guardian Storage Box is small enough to fit in my office closet (above), under your desk, light enough to carry, and works incredibly well as a footstool in a pinch. It has the same capacity as a regular storage box, but astonishingly, can withstand up to 1,200 degrees for up to twenty minutes.

I own one because the nice people at Sentry asked me to review it on my blog! How generous!

The downsides:

You can’t use hanging files. I tried. When you put the lid on, no closey.

See?

If you’re crazy about hanging files and their sticky-uppey plastic tabs (like I am), it’s an odd sensation. You mean, organize without tabs? It’s like going out in public in my bathrobe.

But I tried it.

Proof that organizing doesn't have to be perfect to be effective.

And it wasn’t awful. What I did was cut a few hanging files in half and removed the metal hangers. So there are still dividers. As long as the box is mostly full, it works pretty well.

The upsides:

I’ve been meaning to do this for years.

Technically, the IRS wants you to keep 3-7 years worth of original tax records and receipts. Not bank statements, not credit card statements — original receipts. If they burned up in a fire (God forbid) and I got audited (God further forbid), well I’m sure I’d find a way. But, ugh.

Someday I’ll scan everything (the IRS likes scans), but in the meantime having everything in there and protected makes me feel much better. I like that feeling a lot.

The really cool thing? Receiving the Guardian also motivated me to downsize two file boxes worth of old papers. It took me a weekend, but wow! I love that kind of motivation!

An inspired organizing tip:

If you leave the lid off this box, it’s useless — at least as far as fire protection is concerned. Unless you think you’ll really replace the lid consistently during regular use, plan to put touch-once-per-year archives only in here. Birth certificates. Passports. That way the lid goes right back on and you don’t have to think about it again.

Once you get the hang of putting all those important documents in here, you won’t ever have to frantically search for your passport ever again before leaving for Europe. (And when you do, will you take me with you?)

My summary

This storage box would be better if it copied its non-fireproof cousins and accommodated hanging files. Other than that, it’s pretty darned great! And I’d say the same thing even if the nice Sentry people hadn’t sent me one!

One comment

These days, for the sake of our planet, we want our take-out burgers in cardboard, not plastic. We carry our own bags to the grocery store. We write our notes on recycled paper and we dutifully carry our old computer monitor to the local electronics recycle-guy when it finally gives up the ghost. Then, we dump our fizzled writing instruments into the trash can where they finally end up choking the local land-fill with plastic parts destined to lie around forever.

Papermate, an old and respected name in writing systems, takes its responsibility to the future of our planet very seriously. These days, the company makes many of its products from bio-plastic parts which are completely biodegradable and will de-materialize within one year of introduction to the land-fill. Papermate also has an aggressive recycling message which accompanies its other instruments some of which are made from 70 to 100% recycled materials.

Next time you find yourself in the market for writing tools, consider following Papermate’s lead.

What recycled or recyclable products do you use in your home office and what motivates you to use them?

3 comments

It’s not that I’m a cheapskate, really. I just hate, HATE to throw away a perfectly good file folder because I can’t scrape the old, outdated label neatly and completely off in order that I might re-purpose the thing. Usually, I end up turning the folder inside-out and hoping that I don’t get myself into an unforeseen filing cabinet collision which might reveal my little secret.

The folks at Post-It seem to have heard my pleas. (Or, snarls as the case may be.) Recently, Post-It(R) introduced a new line of heavy-duty, durable and thoroughly peel-off-able file folder tabs. Not only are they extra thick and easy to peel, stick and replace, they come in hot colors – fluorescent pink, yellow, green and orange which will surely speak to me at the end of the day when numbers and words all begin to look like hieroglyphic artifacts.

I love these things! They’re inexpensive, durable and they are pretty. Who knew office supplies could amuse me so completely?

Do you have a trick for reusing old files — or do you toss them and start fresh?

3 comments

Has your life grown a little drab? Is your ‘to do list’ unimaginative and bland? Mr. Sketch to the rescue! For those of us whose color-coding system for calendars, appointments and grocery lists has become a bit mundane, Mr. Sketch introduces colorful, SCENTED markers guaranteed to spice up even the most vanilla of post-it notes.

Now, when I get up early and stumble to my home office with my first cup of coffee, I can organize my day by SMELL! Morning appointments are cherry, afternoon calls are licorice. From melon to mango, Mr. Sketch makes it possible for me to plan my entire schedule without even opening my eyes! Ok. Perhaps that’s stretching it.

For the more practical among us, Mr. Sketch’s scented markers provide an outstanding way to capture the attention of co-worker, students, and family members! Not only are theynon-toxic and brilliantly colored, they pack an extra punch! Since scent is one of the brain’s most powerful memory tools, Mr. Sketch promises to stimulate the olfactory bulbs of everyone around you.

Oh. And did I mention how much fun they are?

Do you love Mr. Sketch too? How do you use these in your home office?

One comment