Wow. We are already half way through January. I love the New Year, but it feels like it is already slipping away! I am really excited to start my first 30-day intention in February, and to hopefully add a habit to my life that will help me live more fully in the moment and intentionally throughout my life. The intention, or goal, that I am choosing for this first month is: 30 Days of Digitizing. I know, I know, this may sound like a boring intention, but I am REALLY excited about it! Our generation is the one to move from paper photographs to digital pictures, and because of that, most of us have a bunch of each. If you’re like me, you probably have your paper photos stored in a variety of places, photo albums where they are yellowing, cardboard boxes in your closet, a few stuffed in envelopes here and there.
As I have spent the last year parting ways with items that don’t hold any value or memories for me, I have spent more time looking at the things that do bring happy feelings and thoughts to my life, and I have found that pictures are one of those things. However, as long as they are in a box hidden out of site, I am not able to enjoy them. I could take a bunch of them out and frame them, but, I don’t like clutter on my walls, and lots of picture frames scattered throughout the house would definitely bother me, and be more to dust.
We have had a number of our digital photos on our TV, and used the screen saver option to have them display throughout the day, which always has caused us to take a few moments and sit down to appreciate where we have been in life, what we have done, and how we have grown. I realized that this is the key for our family to enjoy all our photos. So, over the past six months, I have already been scanning in many of our family photographs. I have finished with loose photos, and now have around 4-5 albums left to scan. Once I have those scanned, everything will be in a digital format and I can edit, categorize and start displaying them on our TV screen saver and on a digital picture frame that we own.
Aside from photos, I am also scanning in paperwork that we should keep, but don’t necessarily need a hard copy of. Papers like receipts, warranty information, vital records (though I will keep those originals) and medical records are all going to be scanned and filed in folders on the computer for easy access. I am also keeping copies in four separate areas to make sure we don’t lose them. I have opted for Drop Box, Google Drive, an external hard drive, and DVD’s, one copy I will keep and another I will send to a family member somewhere. Once I have finished doing this, I will discard my actual physical papers and photos.
Now, onto the planning phase of how I will accomplish all of this, one of my favorite parts of goal setting. I’ve decided that I want to devote 5 hours per week to this goal for a total of 20 hours during February, since it’s a short month. One hour a day, five days a week, should be enough time to finish scanning in all of our photos and paperwork. I’ve also blocked out a time of the day that I think will be the best time to get my one-hour done.
My hope is that by the end of February, our household will be completely digital from paperwork and we will be enjoying our family memories on a daily basis instead of once every few years when I would pull out our big box of pictures. I also hope to cultivate the habit of scanning new paperwork in that we need right when it enters our home, so as not to accumulate new paper clutter.
Check back at the end of February to find out how I did!