It was a huge project, but the motivation was this:
It would only get worse!
So I did this:
1. I found relatively cheap, sturdy, classic photo albums online and ordered a bunch. I use these. I wanted ones that I would always be able to purchase...you could purchase these 40 years ago, and so I figured I could purchase them 40 years from now.
2. I painstakingly went through every single photo, and sorted them in chronological order. I labeled boxes by the year and threw them in there first, and then went through the boxes and ordered them by month. It took me about a week and I worked on them every chance I got. I did one box for Jeff's childhood pics, one for mine, and one for our dating years, engagement, and wedding. From then on, it's just all chronological. I don't write things on the photos, or in the albums-to me, it's enough that I have them IN albums.
3. Once I had those all in order and inserted in the books I know I needed to keep them up often. Now I try to go through my downloaded photos once every 3 months and order prints. I don't have time to make sure each photo is print perfect...sometimes I edit, most of the time I don't. I send them to the store I grocery stop at...that way, it's not inconvenient to pick them up. I make myself put those prints in the albums as soon as I can.
(And a big P.S. My mom has a huge box of photos, all jumbled up, from our childhood. No neat albums. I love getting the box out and looking through them photo by photo. You never know what you'll get. So if your approach is "throw it in a box", then by all means, keep throwing!)
Album Information: Pioneer Photo Album BDP-35. I google that, then find the cheapest price on line. You can sometimes find these at Michaels, but they don't keep a large stock of them, and a unreliable color choice. (But they are probably cheap with a coupon?)
