You’ve inherited everything from Grandma’s attic and closets including old photos, videos, handwritten letters and documents.
After wiping a thin coating of dust from envelopes, you wonder, “What will I do with these?”
There are hidden treasures in your collection of memories, but you have to sift through the scattered piles and find them.
Who has the time and is it worth doing?
I’ve been a photo coach for 30 years and I know you won’t regret taking the time to find the photos, videos and other memories that can bring the past to life.
Clutter is a problem, isn’t it?
You can’t find the photos with special moments and you’re not sure how many pictures you have of children, grandparents, cousins. It’s a blur.
Let’s declutter the hard copies and the thousands of digital files stored on your phone, laptop, and other electronic devices.
Lay out a Personal Photo Plan that you can follow
You’re facing a common problem.
Families still have hard copy memories from 40 years ago, 60 years ago, and even longer that are now fragile and could easily get ruined or lost.
Meanwhile, our smartphones, laptops, external hard drives and flash drives have thousands and thousands more digital files.
What would a Personal Photo Plan for you look like?
I’ll gladly share thoughts on how you can enjoy your photos and other memories to the greatest extent possible now and how you can share your family’s story for the future.
What’s a personal photo plan?
It’s a system you create so you know:
- What photos you want to keep
- How you’re going to store them
- How you’ll use and enjoy them
Phase 1
What memories do you want to keep?
Goal: To gather all your memories into one place so you can easily find the most important ones.
You’re going to save the memories that are the most meaningful. Then you’ll actually toss photos that only have a little to no meaning.
You’re not going to keep everything and you don’t need to keep everything.
Why?
Think about this.
If you’re a museum curator and you’re hosting an exhibit on King Henry VIII, will the exhibit have every artifact, or memory, about King Henry VIII?
No. But there will be enough to let you know about his personality and how he treated people.
You’re curating your family’s history. You’re going to preserve your memories by digitizing the hard copies and safeguard them permanently in cloud storage that’s guaranteed safe.
Do this in 3 easy steps:
1 Choose one place where you’re going to bring all of your printed photos and other files. Keep the ones that give you an emotional tug and put others in a discard pile.
2 Digitize the memories you’re going to keep.
I use FOREVER® because of their outstanding service and quality. I know the company quite well and I know how they compare to other companies.
3 Store your newly digitized files using FOREVER®.
FOREVER® is like your digital museum where the photos, videos, and other memories you select will be guaranteed safe for a lifetime, plus 100 years. The goal is having them accessible even longer.
No other company has that type of guarantee and the trust FOREVER® has earned is unparalleled. I’ll be glad to share more about it with you.
Once your files are stored and digitized then we can move on to the many fun ways you can use your memories.
Phase 2
Now, it’s time to use your photos, videos, and more like you’ve never done before.
Create photo books and gifts to give all year long.
Use your digital files to create keepsake photo books.
Here’s an idea.
If you have handwritten letters you’ve digitized, say ones your parents or grandparents wrote to each other before they were married, then you can arrange those with photos and show the beauty of their relationship.
Use your imagination.
Write your family’s story.
In your FOREVER® account, you have space in the right margin to write a description of the file. You can write a few lines or write a much more detailed account, as long as a chapter in a book.
Research your family’s history.
FOREVER® is the perfect platform to use if you’re digging into your family’s extended history. Use the company’s professional genealogists to lay out a plan so you can start researching or use them to locate hard to find records from past centuries.
I’ve traced my family’s line back to the Civil War era and my husband, Gerald, “met” a long-lost relative from the early 1800s.
Your goal in using FOREVER® is to be on top of and stay on top of cluttered memories so you can enjoy them now and save them for future generations, descendants you’ll never meet but who will meet you.
Here’s a summary of how FOREVER® helps. You can:
Can I help you develop a personal photo plan?
Get in touch and let’s chat 1-on-1.
My personal phone: (626) 323-8553.
Email: melody@safeguardyourmemories.com.
I’ll listen to your questions and what you feel your needs are in terms of digitizing and storing what’s important.
It’d be helpful if you click on the Photo Questionnaire button in the heading and take a few minutes to answer some questions. I’d like to know your views.
Family photos aren’t an afterthought. They’re important for our well-being now and to strengthen the identities of our family in the future.