For those of you who still experienced a life before digital-only photographs, this post is for you. Do you have stacks or boxes of photographs (and maybe even negatives) in your home? You know you should put them in order somehow and maybe even get those negatives developed. However, until now, you haven’t done anything about your photo situation and it starts to bother you. Let me show you how to tidy up your photos the KonMari way.
But before I give you the lo-down, I want to mention that photos are typically part of the 5th and last category if you’re tidying according to the KonMari Method. So make sure to do them last with all your other sentimental items. Read more about the order of KonMari tidying here.
Now, let’s get started:
1) Gather
Gather all your photos and negatives in one stack. Maybe, you keep photos in many different places, such as books, between other papers or in envelopes. Get them all out and in one place.
2) Discard Negatives
If you have any undeveloped old negatives, go ahead and discard them. Yes, you heard that right. Chances are you don’t even know what’s on them. You might be telling yourself that you will have them develop one day. But let’s be honest: if these pictures were important to you, you would have developed them by now. Since you haven’t, you most likely never will.
3) Joy Check
Now go through all your photos and determine the ones that spark joy. Pick up each photo, decide if it makes you happy and sort them into one of two piles: 1) photos that spark joy, and 2) photos that don’t spark joy.
4) Say Thanks & Let Go
Dispose of the photos that don’t spark joy for you. Before you do so, make sure to thank them first. Then, you can either shred your photos or put them in an envelope and dispose of them.
Remember, it’s perfectly fine to get rid of photos – even if there are friends or family members on the photo. If it doesn’t make you happy when you look at it, there’s nothing wrong with tossing it. It’s just a photograph.
5) Organize
Now you can go on to organize the remaining photos. You can go about it different ways. However, the easiest method is to organize your photos (roughly) by year and put them in a photo album or a photo box. If there are certain events (e.g., a wedding), you can certainly create an album just for that event alone. Do what makes the most sense for you. The most important thing is to finally put them in order and get them placed in an album.
And voila! Photos organized!
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