Riddle: What has no lock but can’t be opened for years, sometimes decades?

Answer: A time capsule!

When I was a child, my church built a new wing on the building, and someone put together a time capsule. I remember being fascinated with the idea of putting things aside that couldn’t be looked at for years. The idea of a time capsule has been popping up lately during the coronavirus pandemic.

But there are many problems with a time capsule. What should you include? Where would you store it? What if it gets damaged? How will you remember to open it?

There’s a better way to build your time capsule, and you already have the tools. A photo book, also called a photo album, will hold your memories safely neatly on a shelf, but you can enjoy them with your loved ones without the wait.

When you think back on this time ten or twenty years from now, what will you remember? Will you wish you had built a time capsule? Will you have and be able to locate images of this time, just like any other milestone event? What will your kids remember?

A photograph is the pause button of life.

Have you’ve taken more or fewer pictures since we went into lockdown?

Today is Day 48 for us since school closed. I’ve taken over 123 photos since then, most of them awful since I am not a pro photographer. But there are more than enough to make a lovely photo book.

There’s how my girls felt about school being closed for the rest of the year. (The cat looks pretty happy about it.)

There’s the Easter service with a lockdown twist.

There’s the strange way that our local businesses are operating, open-but-blocked off.

There’s the strange but wonderful way that I attended my annual conference with my photo organizer colleagues around the world, including Matt Paxton of PBS fame!

There’s the birthday party my daughter’s insisted we have for Peep, her favorite stuffed animal.

There’s #CoronaBeans.

And #CoronaBaking.

There’s the proof that nature will do her thing, regardless of what’s going on in our lives.

In just a few minutes, I was able to find, select, and edit enough pictures to start to tell the story of our days in lockdown. With just a handful of photos, I’m well on my way to printing a great photo album to share with my family for decades. A great photo book can be as few as 20 pictures. Don’t overthink it.

You can do this, too!

You can use this time to learn how to organize your photos and make a photo book of YOUR pandemic experience. Then you’ll make photo albums and gifts more often, preserving important times for your family without stressing about where your photos are, whether they are backed up, and whether they are good enough.

If you are the kind of person who likes to eat dessert first, I love you for that. Remember, I’m all about pie! Making a pandemic photo album scratches that itch to actually SEE the end result–the reward!–quickly and without a big investment. It’s a time capsule, but with nearly immediate gratification. Yessssss.

I’d love to guide you with a step-by-step process to get your next photo album DONE! Check out the Save Your Photos with SORT and Succeed online course. This pre-recorded course goes into detail at the exact right level to get results fast AND help you over the inevitable frustrations when you are working with photos. Lessons are short, usually between 4 and 15 minutes, and you can watch and listen on your computer or your phone. It takes you through the steps of organizing both print and digital photos, and it guides you through the steps of making your own printed album. I designed this course so that by the end, you’ll have photos selected and ready to print in a beautiful photo album of your own. Whether you work on it all at once, or you take the rest of the year (or longer!), you’ll be proud of yourself for finishing an important organizing project.

The course never expires and you can take the course at your own pace, so it’s a ridiculous value at $99. But add in a 30-day money-back guarantee, it’s a no-brainer. All these links take you straight to the signup page. 

If you’re not quite sure if this is for you, watch the promo video on the course page and see if you have some of this same photo mess at your home. We’ll help you turn a photo mess into treasured keepsakes.

It’s time to get started on the most important organizing project you’ll ever finish.

Whether you take this course or not, I hope you are inspired to take some photos of this weird, challenging, precious, historic time.

Have questions? I’m all ears. Leave a comment below.