Let’s play! Studies show that laughter and strong social relationships lead to longer, happier lives. Don’t we all want to have more fun? We can’t all be odd ducks like me and think organizing is its own reward, so I’ve got ways to make organizing more fun.
Make Organizing More Fun
Make Organizing More Fun with Games
Who likes games? My team and I are organizing a family after a big move. We got to set up their new basement to highlight all of their games, including this vintage pinball arcade game. The kids probably played it every day when they were young, but when we first saw it, this gorgeous pinball machine had become a de facto pantry holding extra napkins and paper plates. I think pinball machines are awesome. I have fond memories of feeding quarters to the game in Shakey’s Pizzeria as a kid. My team loved giving this pinball machine pride of place in their new basement. Sorry I don’t have a better picture for you.
You probably don’t have a vintage arcade game like this in your home, but organizing your fun stuff can make organizing itself more fun. Doing something “silly” like getting out the board games or puzzles can turn your clutter back into joy, especially when putting things away is no longer a chore. Making your stash beautiful, using color or attractive displays, can encourage you to not only keep things organized, but also use them more often. I want to pull out a game from this organized bookcase, don’t you?
You’re Invited to Organizing Game Night
We know a great idea to make organizing more fun, no matter where you live or what your project is. Join us for our next live organizing game night featuring the DeclutterGo! Game. Fast-paced and colorful, this organizing game is a fun way to get some organizing done. True story, we all got more accomplished than the dice required the last time we played. Click this link to sign up for our organizing game night on 11/16/2023 from 7-8 pm eastern. Click this link or the image below to register now.
Make Organizing More Fun with People
My kind of fun is kicking back and chatting with my close friends. I’m grateful that they let me strong-arm them into a dinner date that none of us has time for…but we all agree we want to do more often. Organizing is about so much more than plastic bins!!!! Organizing time so that we can spend with those we love is never wasted. Here I am with organizing colleagues Isabelle Lamy and Liz Marshlain in London this summer, one of my favorite memories. You can see the Tower Bridge in the center back.
Organizing is definitely more fun (and faster) when you do it with other people. Got a big organizing project? Extra hands make the load lighter. Also, someone who is really good at spatial relationships, color theory, rapid decision making, and problem solving can make a space look amazing — fast! That describes every professional organizer on my team, seen here in the middle of organizing a home library. I promise you, if you aren’t laughing while organizing with other people, you’re doing it wrong! There is always something to laugh at…jokes we’ve saved, funny things the pets do, ourselves!
Make Organizing More Fun with Pictures
Combine those two ideas, gaming and our favorite people, and you’ve got photo face tagging. If you’ve ever searched and searched for a specific photo of your kids, or if you’ve looked for photos of a certain family member, maybe to put together a slideshow or a collage, then you might have run into photo face tagging on your photo management app.
Photo face tags (also called People tagging or people keywords) starts with the photo app grouping faces together using magic. Just kidding. The software is actually using advanced geometry to identify the same face over and over again, even when turned to the side, when wearing glasses or a hat. Then you confirm or deny the proposed groupings. The more you confirm (or deny) proposals for a person’s face, the more you help the artificial intelligence learn where that face shows up in other photos.
Face tagging is really helpful, especially when loading in old digital photos, or when we’ve add decades of scanned photos to your photo library. It can take a few hours to confirm and deny the faces, but it feels like a game. It really feels like magic when the system makes the connection between your favorite person’s face as an adult, a teen, and also as a baby.
Just a few minutes at a time, keep revisiting your People or face tag albums to confirm your faces until they are all tagged. Then creating a grouping is really fun. In seconds, it’s a snap to identify the photos where all three of your siblings show up together, or just your second child with dad, for example.
Photo Face Tagging in Photo Collections
In Apple Photos, on your Mac or iPhone, tap the people icon on the left, click into the person’s photo, and “Confirm Additional Photos.”
In Mylio, on your Mac, PC, or mobile device, click the People icon on the left, click on the Untagged album in the top left, and click on the ? to name or ignore a person. After naming them once, Mylio will look for more photos of that person. When you see a ? on that person’s tile, Click into the tile square to confirm or deny additional photos.
See if naming your people makes organizing more fun and feels like a game. If it does, you can use 10 minutes of people tagging as your SORT and Succeed Step 5 reward for another organizing project that doesn’t feel quite as fun.
Don’t have all of your old digital photos in one place yet? Wish your best old printed photos could somehow be added to your online photos? We’ve got you. Just give me a shout. We’ll get you to having more fun with your photos in no time.
And if you want to challenge me to pinball, well, bring your quarters. I’m game.
