With digital versions on multiple hard drives and cloud services, and countless boxes and scrapbooks full of old snapshots, organizing your photos is no easy task. Use the following suggestions to make a plan and get it done.

Ask yourself what your ideal photo organization system will allow you to do. Do you want to easily find a specific photo? Organize it into online scrapbooks? Choose nature photos to frame? Thinking about the purpose will help you come up with an organization plan.

For example, if you want to be able to find specific photos, you need to label them all. If you want to organize them in online scrapbooks, does the same apply to printed photos? If so, you need to digitize them.

Once you know what you want your photo organization to look like, you’ll need to set aside time each week to set it up and maintain it. Your specific tasks will depend on which of the actions below you want to complete. For example, you might spend half an hour each week scanning photos until that’s done, then move on to tagging, and then to creating online scrapbooks.