Organizing Your Family Photo Collection: Is Perfectionism
Holding You Back?
Photographs are so important to us, and most of us consider our
photographs to be our greatest treasure. It can be pretty
intimidating to face the task of caring for your greatest
physical treasure.
It is such a big deal, in fact, that we may have unspoken
visions of how we see ourselves handling this task. Whether
we're aware of it or not, most of us would hope to pull off
something of Martha Stewart's caliber when it comes to how OUR
photographs would be arranged and displayed. (We should note
that we're referring to Martha's artistic creativity, not her
creative expression in finance).
Perhaps we have lofty visions of beautifully designed scrapbook
albums, or handsome stacks of leather photo boxes neatly lining
the shelves of our mahogany bookcase. (Who cares if we don't
even own a mahogany bookcase - it goes better with our vision,
so we throw it in there.)
Some of us are so afraid of not living up to these unspoken
expectations, that we'd rather not even attempt it. (Maybe we
hear our mother's voice echoing in our heads, "If you can't do
it the right way, then don't do it at all!") So we continue
along telling ourselves that we will do it someday and when we
do, it will be perfect.
Perfectionism is basically a fear of doing it incorrectly. To
overcome this, recognize it and then get over it! A major
oversimplification, right?
Well, look at it this way. Don't you have lots of areas in your
life where you consciously decided to lighten up your standards?
Perhaps you don't make your bed as carefully (or at all!) or
your house isn't impeccably maintained the way that your mother
did it. But so what? You have a real life and you need to get on
with it, right? It's the same with your pictures. Make the
decision to get on with it! Don't worry about making a mistake
and doing it the "wrong way." There is no wrong way -- unless of
course you use unsafe materials or keep your photographs in
unsafe environments. And you've got a much greater risk of doing
that when you don't do anything at all! Take action and don't be
afraid to make course corrections along the way. Anything you do
to capture your memories and preserve photographs will be a gift
- to your loved ones and to yourself!
Excerpted from Save Your Photos and Your Sanity: How to
Organize and Safeguard Your Entire Photograph Collection...in as
little as 10 days, without losing your mind!
Visit www.orga
nizedphotos.com/photoorganizing.html