It all started back in the dark ages, when we used film and had to send that film off to be developed. Since it was so time-consuming, we usually ordered double prints to send to friends and family. Add marriage and kids in the mix, and soon we found we had mountains of prints and negatives.
Many years ago I got rid of the negatives, since I didn't organize them. A few years ago I decided to organize the photographs. I bought photo boxes, labeled each one with the name of a family member, and then went through the pictures, tossing the appropriate one into the corresponding box.
This went fine for a few years, until someone requested a particular picture. Finding it involved hours of going through the boxes and loads of pictures, sometimes unsuccessfully. There had to be a better way.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I decided that getting rid of photos would be my project. I bought some inexpensive photo albums where you just slip in the picture. I labeled each album the same way I did the boxes, then went through each box. I cast aside the duplicates and pictures I didn't want to keep. I put the rest in the album in semi-chronological order. The photos that were left over were given to the family to do with what they wanted.
Did I clear up space in my house? Maybe a little. But I cleared up time, because now it's easier to locate and look at pictures. It's an un-cluttering of a part of my life and getting rid of the unnecessary, which is the whole point of the 100 things. Sometimes it's the little things that make life a little easier.
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