As I publish this blog post today, it marks five full months since I’ve been here. To the day. My last post was the experience of moving my first born into his first year of college / dorm. That was September 5.

This was not a planned absence and, as I always say after a break from blogging, I have missed being here. Deeply. No surprise that a lot has occurred in the last five months. I’ll catch you up in time. There’s been plenty going on professionally and personally. I look forward to sharing – and, of course, being here more often in 2024 as well.

So…Happy New Year! Hi! I hope you are doing well this year!

Since I have absolutely no idea where to begin, I’m going to update you on a couple big topics I’ve been working on that I am really excited about: my personal photo organization project and the launch of my very first digital course this coming Spring!

I absolutely can not forget to mention how thrilled we are that the 49ers made it to the Super Bowl! I went to several games this season and will share more on that. But Go Niners!

I’ve been wearing this sweater on repeat. I have it in black and white…and if you want to order before the big game, you’ll want to do so quickly. It’s from Etsy and she’s a small business seller so it will take time to fulfill. LOVE it!

( sweater )

I also shared my favorite Purdy t-shirt and many more cute 49ers items here!…

PHOTO ORGANIZATION

Pretty sure I touched on this project last year, but essentially I had enough with my overwhelming photo disorganization. Between the thousands upon thousands of personal and business digital photos, my bins of printed photos and photo albums, and all of my extended family photo memories – I was drowning. With no life boat in sight. Not only that, but I was also frustrated that when I wanted to access a photo quickly….Ha! That never happened. I’d be browsing for HOURS to find that one photo I needed (if lucky enough to find it) for that graduation or birthday.

And don’t get me started about trying to share portfolio projects with prospective clients.

I had it. Up to here.

Last year, I engaged with Adam Pratt – a professional organizing peer who runs an entire business dedicated to getting your photo life out of chaos and in tip top order. I knew the project would to take time (and money) but it wasn’t going to start improving until I actually took the first step. I did that by contracting with him for phase one.

In phase one, I gave him access to all of my digital photos. Including iCloud and remote access to my phone. The first step included him downloading everything on his end so that he could process through the photos to de-duplicate and put them in chronological order. We decided this phase would also include separating my personal photos from the business photos – which was a monumental task itself. It took his team a bit of time but that was completed in the Fall. So now I have two catalogs of photos with minimal duplicates and everything is organized by year.

The phase I am in now is my own homework. I started with the business photos because there’s fewer of them … ahem, I say “fewer” but I started with roughly 10,000+ photos (maybe more?)! What I’ve been doing is going year by year, starting back in 2010, to delete near duplicates, keyword and tag the images. What I thought might be a mundane, annoying task has actually been the highlight of my days – and nights (sometimes when I can’t sleep I run through a few months). I have been doing 3-4 months each day and am blown away by how much work I have accomplished in this business. Seeing it all in one catalog and finally being able to highlight the very best project photos has reignited my love of this business.

Adam did quote me for his team to keyword and tag, but it made more sense for me to run through them myself since I know the client names (which is one of the keywords I’m using). I only have 2-3 years left. Once that is completed I will have an epic portfolio … and then I can FINALLY create that portfolio page I have had on my dream to-do list!

Here’s something to end this topic on for now….I can tell you = I will NEVER AGAIN let my photos get this out of hand. Going through this process hasn’t been painless. And I vow to myself to never let it get out of control from here forward. I now have a defined process to follow. I’ll share more another time including the framework Adam taught me.

One of my other big takeaways from Adam is to treat your phone like a memory card. Do not let your photos sit on your phone for years at a time. Once a month (or whenever you wish) upload the photos off your phone and into your external drive, Lightroom, the Cloud, etc.

Genius!

Really it’s all about having a system / routine and that makes ongoing maintenance easier.

DIGITAL COURSE

This one’s been a long time coming. And much like that photo organizing project, it wasn’t going to happen unless I made it happen.

Without droning on, I’m launching my first digital course this spring…with the hopes of more to come in the future.

(What you see on the wall in my office is the current course outline…so you can see how much I am pouring into this. The detail and thought is deep.

Although the content is still being created (I’m pretty much there…just pruning at this point and developing the slides, etc), I wanted to share a bit about it here in case you are interested in joining the email list.

What is it?

I’m not disclosing the overall topic / space just yet, but trust me when I say it’s a space everyone struggles with. I’ll be teaching you my defined process for getting from start to finish and all the way to maintenance. I will be walking you step by step through the process and you will be taking the course on your own time. It’s a self-paced DIY course with me as your teacher and coach. Complete with videos, checklists and more!

Why?

I want to help more families and people learn how to declutter and organize in a thoughtful, successful way. For you to learn from the expert. For you to have a defined process so you aren’t lost or unsure of how / where to begin.

And because there’s only one of me and I can’t travel to everyone….creating this makes sense and allows me to help more of you.

When?

I’m launching this course in the Spring – likely mid-late April. It will be available for purchase for one week. The course will be delivered in some fashion; all in one fell swoop or weekly release of the modules. Haven’t decided that yet. And you will have lifetime access to it and any future updates.

How much?

The price is still being defined right now. I am pouring everything I have into this and want to make it affordable to everyone.

There will be two price points – one that is self-directed and a second tier that is self-directed but a limited number of people will have group coaching for a few weeks following the launch.

More details will be shared soon.

To note, I am doing this completely on my own. It’s been a LOT of work but I know it’s going to be worth it. I do have a teacher who taught me the framework and a bunch of behind the scenes tech stuff, but it’s been a self-directed class and 100% on me. I’m even creating the pdf downloads, the slide deck…everything! It’s going to be a learning process (including all of the video content I need to set up and shoot myself) and I’m sure there will be bumps with this first launch…but if I don’t do it, I never will…and I can’t learn from my mistakes until I put it out there.

Sooooo, if you’d like to join the email list and be the first to know about the upcoming launch, you can do so here:

JOIN MY EMAIL LIST

I will not spam a ton of info or marketing crap…I will definitely be sending some info prior to launch week, but I promise it will be emails worth opening. They will have specific and necessary info.

Ok, more to come soon! I did want to remind you, you can always find me on Instagram, FB and TikTok if you’re looking for organizing content. Those platforms are updated daily and I show up in stories from time to time. It’s been nice focusing on this course content because I’ve been home more to share more on social.

Hope you are all doing well!

Back soon!

xo,

Sam