This week we're tackling another long overdue project here at the CMS HQ.
I am going to digitize a bunch of old photos and documents and CDs
and cassettes and sentimental items. It's giving me the opportunity to review
each and every item that I no longer need around the house, and it also allows me
to create backup copies of the items which we do want and we can have access
to at any time. Now, before we get cracking,
you are going to need a few things to make this project successful.
First you will need a scanner or a photo taking device,
and you can just use a flatbed scanner like I am here, or you can use
one of those specialty photo and document scanners.
I don't have one, but I will link some down below in case you are interested.
You will also need some sort of photo capturing equipment,
so you can use a good old smartphone with a good photo taking app,
or you can use a digital camera. You also need some sort of reliable
storage solution, so something like an external hard drive that works with your
computer, or you can use some cloud product, like Dropbox or iCloud.
Finally, make sure you have a shredder and appropriate recycling facilities
handy because, of course, you're going to want to safely dispose
of any of your items once you've digitized.
Now that we've got all that set up, time to get digital.
Documents.
Start by asking yourself if you must have the original document once you
have a digital copy available. Further, what documents can you safely
get rid of, like old purchase and sale agreements, legal documents,
or tax paperwork which you no longer legally need to hold onto.
Also, any instruction manuals are now mostly available on the Internet, so these
can safely go without even digitizing.
Scan in your important documents, and the best part is that once
documents are scanned in, they can often be saved as searchable PDF files.
This makes it substantially easier to find a specific document
you're looking for, and it also avoids pesky paper cuts.
Use this as an opportunity to create smart folders and subfolders in your
digital storage, which will also help reduce digital clutter and make
things easier to find. So what I suggest is to do it by year
and then by sub-headers, like 2012 Taxes, Travel, Health,
Medical, Vehicle, and then do the same thing for 2013 and so on.
Once you have everything in digital format, of course
I recommend that you just shred all of the paper
so that you stay on the safe side.
Old photos.
As mentioned last week, old photos are great, but the limitations of only having
a hard copy are pretty obvious. So making digital copies of your favorite
old photos is a great investment of time. Like we did with the documents,
we're going to go through each photo first and discard the mediocre ones
and only scan in the ones that we really want to keep or share.
This is an important vetting process, so don't just go through and scan
every photo that you have. Be a little bit discerning.
Now most newer scanners are accompanied with very interesting software which makes
the process not as hard or as time consuming as you might think
and might even have automated features which adjust, straighten, and even
color correct your photos. This means your photos will actually
end up looking better than the original. Talk about value add.
If you don't have a scanner, you can just try taking a picture of a picture with a
digital camera or a smartphone. Now it might take some practice to get the
lighting just right, but once you toggle around with it a bit, you'll manage
to take pictures of old photos that will turn out great.
Once all of your worthy photos are scanned and you've put aside those extra special
photos which you will never part with, which I totally get by the way, you
can dispose of the remainder by either passing them along to family or friends,
or straight up throwing them away.
If you're a parent or a grandparent, this one's for you.
A few smart friends of mine, who take a bazillion photos of their kids,
create beautiful photo books each year online,
and then they get the books shipped to them.
So this allows them to delete all of the photos from their phones and SD cards
so that they can reduce digital photo clutter and keep
the many great photos that they have taken
in a nice book that they can use as a keepsake to show off.
Music and Movies.
It's 2015, so let's face it. There is very little reason
to be taking up storage space with your collection of 635 CDs from
your favorite bands from high school. These days it is much easier to store all
of your music digitally and to have it available whenever you want,
wherever you want. You might even decide that you want
to get rid of this stuff altogether and embrace digital music programs,
like Grooveshark, Pandora, Spotify, Songza, and iTunes.
Now my friends, there are a lot of legalities involved with this subject
and a lawyer Melissa Maker is not.
So please review your country's laws on digitizing music and movies.
I will tell you right now, though, a lot of people are very confused about this
topic, and it leaves a gaping gray area, because if we are trying to declutter,
we are giving away our content and oftentimes we want to make
our own copies before we do that because, you know, we paid for it.
But here's the rub. From what I understand,
you can give away a copy of something like a CD or a DVD so long as you
don't retain a digital copy of it anymore, just like photocopying
a book and then giving it away or selling it would be illegal.
So I'll leave the moral and legal decisions up to you, and you
can investigate on your own how you wish to handle digitizing this stuff,
and I have got some links down below for you to check out on this very topic.
If you have CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays that you no longer watch
and have not digitized, you can do away with the product as you wish.
Donate them or sell them. If you have created that archived copy
for yourself, well that's where things get murky.
I would love to tell you to donate them, because disposing of them
seems wasteful, and it is. However, I believe that is what the law
would like for you to do. Now with that awkward topic out of the
way, if you have old home movies or cassettes of you playing the piano,
you can digitize these safely, because, hey, it's all your content.
Create digital copies to store and provide a lifetime of embarrassment
for your children. There are specialty products available
to help you in case some of these are on some now defunked formats,
like VHS or camcorder tapes.
Sentimental Items.
As discussed in last week's video, sentimental items are the toughest ones
to part with, but digitizing some of these items might be just what
you need to let to let go of the physical item itself
while saving the memories surrounding it.
This artwork from my childhood takes up a lot of space, but it does indeed
mean a lot to me. After sorting through it and picking out
the pieces that I really want to keep, I'm going to take a photo of each piece
that I am parting ways with and create a digital catalog or virtual art gallery
of sorts, and all of my priceless pieces can be stored in there forever.
Now that I have an archived copy, I can safely part ways with the majority
of my art without parting ways from the memories.
This can also be done for heirlooms, gifts, mementoes and greeting cards,
which are particularly special to you but you feel that you want to part ways
with the physical item. So what you can do, like we discussed
last week is take a picture or scan these items in and create
a digital catalog of special items that you can enjoy for years to come.
Now that you have digital copies, you're going to have to find somewhere to store
your documents and photos, and you have two options available.
You can save them locally to your computer or your device or even an
external hard drive, like these, meaning that if you want to access the files,
you would have to do so by using the actual computer
or device or plugging in your hard drive.
Or you can save them online or in the cloud, which makes your digitized files
available to you anywhere at any time on virtually any device.
There are a plethora of options available for cloud storage, and as always
I will link some options down below for you along with some apps
that you can use to digitize your stuff.
Once the item has found its digital forever home,
it is really up to you what you are going to do with the originals.
Clearly I am not going to throw away my marriage certificate or my truly cherished
old photos, but it does give me the opportunity to really slim down
the physical clutter in my home. This week's comment question is:
What do you need to digitize? Is it a bunch of CDs?
Is it a bunch of photos or documents?
Let us know in the comments down below, because I am very curious
about your spring cleaning needs.
Let me know what you're up to by finding me on Instagram
and tagging me in your spring cleaning photos.
You can also see what I am up to. I am @MelissaMaker.
He is at @TheChadReynolds. We are @CleanMySpace.
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Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.
Welcome to the very end of this week's video.
I have a couple of great recommendations for you to watch now.
Over on the right side of the screen you will see a video called
"Declutter Your Bedroom," which delivers some excellent tips
and tricks on how to, you guessed it, declutter your bedroom.
Also over there is a video called "How to Get Your Spouse to Clean,"
which shares some helpful advice on creating reasonable and fair
cleaning responsibilities in your home.
Happy spring cleaning, and we'll see you soon.