Why You Should Digitize Your Memories
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Every Thursday, I share one action, habit, or project you may want to undertake in order to improve your health, happiness, and sense of well-being.
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PROJECT OF THE WEEK
Why You Should Digitize Your Memories!
When working with clients, it is my job to ask questions that support the client in making smart decisions about what items are adding value and what items are not adding value to their lives. This is the key to creating a space that supports one's goals.
Another factor that we always account for is how replaceable an item is. Are you willing to give up a pair of high heels that have been collecting dust in your closet for five years, knowing full well you could easily buy another pair if the need strikes? The answer is likely yes. However, you’d be less likely to give up those blue Manolo Blahnik heels you bought for your wedding. Some items, particularly those attached to precious memories, are not worth letting go.
Then, there are items, such as your family's photos and videos, that are not replaceable.
Investing the time and money to digitize family photos and videos is SO valuable!
The Benefits to Digitizing Your Memories:
You memories are backed-up and protected.
Your memories are easy to access.
Your memories are easy to share with friends and family.
Simplifies the process of creating digital photo books and wall art.
The Risks of Not Digitizing Your Memories:
Your memories can easily be lost in a moldy storage environment, a flood or a fire.
You rarely find joy in looking back at your memories, since they are hard to access and potentially disorganized.
If you share a memory with a family member or friend, it may get lost.
Getting Started
How to Digitize Your Memories:
The first step is to decide how you are going to digitize your memories and what type of memories you have.
There are a number of companies that you can hire to digitize your memories.
Whatever company you choose, I recommend having them digitized so that you can save them to both an external hard drive and the cloud. I do not recommend having them digitized to a DVD format. Yes - they are still doing this!
I personally used Scan Cafe to digitize my family's VHS Tapes and Photos. If you sign-up for Scan Cafe’s emails, they are constantly running promotions. I was pleased with their customer service and responsiveness and felt my family’s memories were well cared for.
If you choose to hire a company that digitizes memories, I recommend taking a little time to pre-organize your items.
How to pre-organize photos:
Purchase Gallon and Quart sized Ziploc bags. These don’t need to be expensive - the Dollar Store carries these!
Spend some time briefly reviewing each photo and categorizing them into piles.
While you will need to set some time aside to do this, it likely will not take as long as you imagine.
When reviewing the photos, throw out the photos that are bad quality. Remember way back before digital cameras, we developed all of our photos. It’s time to let go of those photos that are fuzzy or one of the 10 from your breakfast in Italy. Be like Elsa - let it go!
For all other photos, create some large categories that make sense to you.
Below are some examples:
Immediate Family
Extended Family
Allison (Sister)
Allison's Wedding
NYC Trip 1999
Semester Abroad
For each category, start a pile on the floor or on a table and add a sticky note next to it with the category name.
Once you are done sorting the photos, add them to a Ziploc bag and label the bag with a permanent marker. Include the name of the category. You can dive deeper here if you want. For example: Allison’s Wedding Ceremony, Allison’s Wedding Reception, Allison’s Wedding Brunch.
Don't worry if you have more photos than you can fit in one bag; it's fine to have multiple bags for the same category.
By labeling the bags, the company that scans and digitizes your photos can create a folder with each category name and scan all the pictures in that category into that folder.
How to pre-organize videos:
This one is optional. I did not have a VCR, so I simply sent off all our VHS tapes. It was simple enough to watch then after they were digitized and label them.
The downside to not pre-watching the VHS tapes and determining the content is that I ended up paying for VHS tapes to be digitized that were such poor quality you can't see anything, as well as digitizing TV recordings of The Wizard of Oz and Winnie The Pooh. Whoops!
If I were to do it again, I would purchase a VCR and pre-watch them to make sure they are worth digitizing. If you label each VHS, the company digitizing them will label the file with that name.
Why Digitizing Your Memories is Worth the Investment!
I understand that this is an investment. It's not inexpensive.
That being said, I have never heard a client regret the money they spent digitizing their family's memories.
I have had many clients share how sad and frustrated they are by memories being lost, damaged, or destroyed.
If you add up the money you spend on experiences each year, you would likely find that you can digitize a lifetime worth of memories for less than you spend on eating out or taking a family trip.
Last year, I digitized our family's VHS tapes as a holiday present for my siblings. They appreciated it and I probably only spent a little more than I would have, had I bought them each a gift.
P.S. I do have 8 siblings, so this statement may not be true for you!
Have you digitized your memories?
We would love to hear about your experience!
Additional Resources
Hiring a Photo Manager is an option. You can find a Professional Photo Manager HERE.
If you are short on time or overwhelmed by the thought of undertaking this project, this is a great option!
Ready to Get Started?
If you feel excited about implementing this strategy and want some additional accountability and support to get started, the It’s All in the Planning Starter Pak was designed for you!
A Note from Happy Spaces
The goal is to add value to your life. If you think this project will add value:
Estimate how long you think it will take. I would recommend doubling the time you estimate.
Look at your calendar over the next week and pick a date and time to get started.
Make an appointment on your calendar for the estimated time.
If you estimate that completing this project will take longer than one hour, I recommend doing it over multiple days. This will support you in getting started!
Prior to starting this project, take a few minutes to make a step-by-step list of EVERY action you need to take to complete this project.
It's not all or nothing. You can choose to implement only the parts of this project that add value to your life.
An Accountability Partner can be a great support in following through on your goals and commitments.
We understand how challenging it can be to implement new habits and systems. For additional support please go to HappySpacesBySarah.com.
Creating a life you don't need a vacation from! ®
Sincerely,
Sarah Weingarten
Meet Sarah
Growing up as the oldest of nine siblings in Upstate New York, I learned to use organization to create sanity among the chaos. Today, I work together with individuals, families, and small businesses to create habits, systems, and spaces that support their needs, goals, and dreams. Clients often refer to our work together as "life-changing" and "better than decades of therapy". What I love most about my work is the lasting impact it has on real people's lives. Nothing makes me happier than hearing the many success stories of clients I have worked with.