Did you collect all your photos? Print, phone, memory cards, computer storage? Great! Now it's time to set up an organized system to file all the images. Once you've created your filing system, it will be so much easier for you to sort and save.

You'll want all images saved in one place so when creating your filing system, think in terms of what works best for you. Since you may have images on a lot of storage devices, moving everything to one place will not only create a more organized system, you may also ENJOY your photos even more!

There are two methods that I recommend in creating folders. One method that is most common is to create folders by year. For example, create folders named "2020", "2019", "2018", "2017", etc. Then you'll create sub-folders within each year to sort... The sub-folders could be "Christmas"; Lacrosse Games; Trip to Florida". If you choose to organize with this method, it will be less overwhelming to start with the current year and work backwards.

This method, with folders by year, is shown below:

The method I use (that may only work with the way my mind works) is to create folders by event, holiday, celebrations, etc. and then the sub-folders are by year. For example, I have a main folder titled Travel and the sub-folders are named by the locations and year we visited. The sub-folders could be "Destin 2011", NYC 2012", "Italy 2020" (the trip we were going to take this month...).

My method is shown below:

Once you've set up your filing system, it's time to move all your image files to ONE location to begin. This is best on your computer or an external hard drive (which will have more capacity for storage if you have a LOT of images).

In Part 4, you'll begin the sorting and scanning process. Much easier if you've already created your folders on your computer or external hard drive!