Organizing an ADHD Brain
This Podcast is about what it's like to have ADHD and different techniques people can apply to their life to find their own version of what organized means. Megs is a professional organizer coach with ADHD and shares how organizing your brain, while understanding how it works, provides the key to living your best life.
Organizing an ADHD Brain
Organizing Your Digital Memories: Expert Tips for ADHD Brains with Krista K
Take Krista's Course on Digitizing and Organizing Your Photos: Krista's Course
Pre-Order Krista's Book: Beyond the Storm
Krista has worked as a professional photographer for over 30 years but more recently began a mission to offer easy photo organizing solutions. After helping flood victims salvage thousands of personal photographs in 2022 she realized there was a great need to help everyday people to proactively secure and organize all of their pictures. She has since been featured on dozens of news outlets, authored a book on the topic, hosted workshops and spoken at events encouraging and inspiring everyone to be proactive with their own personal photographs.
In this episode, the host welcomes Krista, a professional photographer and photo organizer from Southwest Florida, to discuss the importance of organizing and digitizing photos. Krista shares her journey from being a professional photographer to becoming passionate about photo organization after the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian. She provides practical advice on assembling and digitizing photos, including the use of specific apps and tools, and emphasizes the importance of being proactive in safeguarding valuable memories. Additionally, the host announces upcoming events, including body doubling sessions and a presentation on organizing with ADHD, as well as highlighting the benefits of community support for individuals with ADHD.
03:37 Krista's Journey: From Photographer to Organizer
08:35 Practical Tips for Organizing Photos
12:21 The Importance of Digitizing Photos
17:09 Overcoming Tech Barriers
21:35 Preparing for the Unexpected
24:25 The Procrastination Trap
25:57 Starting the Digitization Process
27:13 Tools and Services for Digitizing Photos
29:13 Courses and Workshops on Photo Digitization
32:18 The Emotional Journey of Photo Organizing
35:37 Preserving Family History
40:24 Photo Storage Solutions
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Hey everyone. Welcome to the episode this week. I'm really excited to introduce you to my friend Krista. I'm really excited for you to hear what she has to say about organizing your photos, digitizing your photos. It's something that a lot of us have been planning to do, but we've been putting off for a really long time. And here's the thing, as you're going through and listening today, this is not something that needs to be put at the top of the list if you have so many other things that need to be done first. But it's still helpful to have the information because the more you know, the easier it's going to be for you to start that task. I posted a blog last week where I talk about the barriers, and I talked about this in last week's episode too, is a lot of the time we don't do something. Not because we don't feel like doing it. Yes, that's part of it, right? But also because it doesn't bring the dopamine. We have an interest-based nervous system, so we're looking for something that's gonna be more exciting, but also because a lot of the times there's a barrier there. We have to address the barrier before we can truly attack something. And the more you know about how to attack something about how to get through to the other side, the easier it is for you to accomplish that task By taking small and concentrated actions in the right direction. Some quick announcements before we jump into the show. I am gonna be hosting two events with Russ's community from the A DHD Big Brother. If you remember, I interviewed him on the podcast last September and then I was on his podcast as well, and he is. An incredible human. and I can't wait for you to join us. I posted two of our events in the show notes below. One of them is gonna be a body doubling session where we're all going to be decluttering together, and it's a free event where both of our communities are invited, but also the public. So if you wanna join us in RSVP. Please join us to declutter with all of us in one place. I'm also going to be giving a presentation on organizing with A DHD. Now, obviously if you're here and you're listening to the podcast, some of the information may be repeated, but just a really good idea of what my perspective is on organizing with A DHD. So I'd love to see you at both of those events.
Yeti Stereo Microphone-1:Community is such an important part about having a DHD because when we know we're in it together. We know that other people's brains work like ours, we're more likely to be able to get things done because we can see that other people are struggling too. And we talk about that. We overcome it. We try new things. We figure out what does work for us. So come join me and Russ from the A DHD, big Brother.
Yeti Stereo Microphone-2:Let's go ahead and jump into the show.
Megs:I am so excited to be joined by Krista who is a professional organizer for photos. And if you're listening to this today, I know you have 10,000 photos that you have no idea what to do with because most of us do. So Krista, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Krista:Absolutely. Thanks for having me.
Megs:Okay, tell us a little bit about you. Who is Krista?
Krista:I live in southwest Florida. I am originally from Pennsylvania though, moved down here after I graduated from college to sunny, southwest Florida. And I am a professional photographer. I have been a photographer my whole life since I was a child. I pretend to be the photographer, so photo is my life. And, years ago I used to. Have that feeling that I needed to have hobbies, that I wasn't doing enough hobbies. And then maybe in the past 10 years, I realized my job is also my hobby. I love photography. And so now I embrace that. I embrace, I'm a little bit of a workaholic but I love what I do. I love photography, so a good portion of my free time as well as my work time, revolved around photo and taking pictures.
Megs:it envelops who you are, right? Those memories and the people that are in your life and help you believe in yourself. So you are a professional photographer, so how did you get into the photo organizing business?
Krista:it was year 25 years I've been a professional photographer. It wasn't until Hurricane Ian came and just really did a number on my area and, it was up to like 15 feet of flood water that came through so many homes. And destroyed everything, like all of the contents of the home, including people's personal photographs. And I just jumped in and started volunteering to help people salvage what they could of those photographs. And through that process I learned that a lot of people just don't know easy steps to, digitize a photo. So you have that memory safe in case of disaster. and that just led from that to, Realizing that people were the same with their phone pictures. they don't know how to back them up or they aren't backing them up and they're not aware of the risks they're taking. I just became a passion project slash second business where I try to get the word out and motivate everybody to be proactive and to back up their phone pictures and to digitize those print photos so they're all safe. so that's the journey that took me to here. Now I do courses and workshops, and I have a book coming out. I have a lot going on that's more, yeah, I'm super excited about it. but more focusing on just trying to, Inspire people to be proactive and teach them some easy methods. I don't necessarily take people's photos in and work on them, I have a lot of organizer friends who I love to recommend, but I'm more the line of looking to help people and inspire them and not necessarily take their photos from them as a, photo organizer would entail.
Megs:That's amazing. I love that so much, and that's something that I want to embody too, partly because this is my perspective on it, at least from like the professional organizer stance, is when you go into someone's home and you take over their life and organize their entire life, it's in your hands. Whereas if you're showing them how to do it and teaching them the tools that they need and the different mindsets and perspectives to have around their stuff and protecting it. You get to give them the beliefs that they get to then live their life with, which is so powerful. So thank you for doing that. what a gift that is to learn more about how you can manage your life.
Krista:Absolutely. and then take that and keep it going forward as opposed to somebody who's gonna come in and do it for you, and then it stops today, and then you're left. So I like to think I'm giving everyone the tools to keep their photos organized today and going forward.
Megs:That's really neat. I hate that it was inspired by Hurricane Ian, right? Because there's so much devastation when you go through a huge loss like that. But I love that that was also an. Inspiration to you. I come from the insurance business, and so I remember when I was educating people on the phone and then helping my team to educate people on the phone, so often people were just like, what's the bare minimum that I can have? I'm just gonna work with that and then go from there. Whereas really it's about knowing what could happen, having all the tools, having all the education, and. Then making the best decision for yourself. Because once people knew how they could be protected and what they could do with their stuff, they made different decisions. I think that's part of, what you're doing is so incredible, I can't wait to know more about the photo organizing piece, but we talked a little bit about A DHD, right? This is called organizing an A DHD brain my goal is to empower more women and men out there to understand that just because you have a DHD doesn't mean that you can't be organized. It just means that you have to think a little bit differently about it.
Krista:I'm self-diagnosed A DHD, but it's something that through most of my adult life, I realized that I just, I think in a zigzag is the way I always put it. My husband is an engineer. He's super linear, and I think he sometimes reminds me that, I do think in a zigzag, I think it works for me and I like it. I just have to have methods from my everyday life to organizing photos. I have methods that work for me to accomplish a task that it doesn't have to be linear like he works and thinks.
Megs:I love the way that you describe it as a zigzag because like sometimes I'm zigzagging, sometimes I'm going vertical and like horizontal. It's all over the place. there's no linear for me, What a brilliant way to describe that. So you have provided us with a bunch of tools that I'm gonna link in the show notes below. So thank you for doing that, because I think sometimes with our brains, we don't even know where to start. We know that we have to start, but then the project feels so gigantic that how could we possibly get going where we are, right? if we do have 10,000 photos in our Google photos or wherever we're keeping them. I know I just had to upgrade my storage because my Gmail was like, you're not allowed to use your email anymore because you're not paying for enough storage. Because I have too many pictures and videos saved. And while I have some sense of organizing in that space, I haven't gone through and really deleted the things that I don't need anymore. And so where do we even start when it comes to our photos?
Krista:I do think looking at it in tiny parts, and that's where my A DHD brain comes in because I can't sit down and spend a day, like I don't have that attention span. I need to do things in smaller bits. So that's how I suggest everybody does it, is that you're breaking things down into smaller parts. So if that's the photos on your phone, set a specific amount of one month you're going to look at, and I always suggest. Starting with routines that start today before you even look back at your old photos. So start with the photos you took this past week or even just today, and going through them, scrolling through, hearting, those favorites. So you have. A group separated out that, that's the best, but also deleting the junk as you go through and making that a daily routine or a week every Sunday night. It's your routine. but making a routine of organizing. And then there's also easy apps that you can download. There's one called Daily Delete, and that's a great app. That's really it, almost gamifies deleting, cleaning up your camera roll. So it really adds like a little, dopamine hit to it. Like it's fun to go through and, delete your photos. So that's just a neat app that I suggest people use too. But really starting with just having a routine that's starting today and going forward would be the first thing. And then as you go back, as you have time, you say, I'm gonna work on this today, work on a specific, very specific period of time. I am only going to look at pictures from the past month, or from, I'm gonna start with. whatever month, and I'm going to just do one month at a time or today, my goal is to go look at three months of photos. I think having a goal set also, helps to make it manageable and not have you just get tired of the task and never wanna come back to it. So that's what I suggest. I do think, to speak on the storage aspect though, to a certain degree, I know a lot of people will ask me like, how do I eliminate paying for storage? I think part of having photos is paying for storage, and I think that's the easiest way to keep them. 20 years ago I used to have to pay to get all my pictures developed, and that was the expense of loving to take photos, whether it was, just a point and shoot camera or anything. So now the expenses, we need to store them and the easiest method to do that is to pay for storage, whether it's Dropbox or Google Photos or wherever you're storing them. I also think that's part of the mindset to, keep in mind too.
Megs:I really like that. What a good perspective to have. Like we used to have to pay to develop them, and that's expensive. And then you'd had to pay for film and then you had no idea what kind of photos you were taking, so you would just take one and hope for the best. And most of the time, that's why we paid for professional photographers because we did not get it on the first try.
Krista:Yes.
Megs:And I love the way that you talk about, stick to a specific month. And that's one of the ways we talk about organizing our home is you can't do it all at once. You can't go through all the years at once when it comes to your photos. So putting blinders on and saying, this is where I'm starting and this is where I'm gonna go from here. And just sticking with that specific idea. and I love the idea of daily delete. I'm so excited. Some people listen to this show and then they're like, wow, Megan, you have a DHD, and you're so organized. How do you possibly do it? And I'm like, my home is organized and I'm working on these other aspects of my life. I am a work in progress, just like any other human being out there. And that's important to remember As you start and continue to evolve, you're gonna grow in what you learn how to do and learn how to organize in your life, including photos, including your home. So thanks for explaining that way, because there are so many parallels when it comes to organizing the digital space as well as your actual physical space. it's really quite neat. okay, so tell us, do. you still practice being a professional photographer?
Krista:I do actually, so I photograph families and weddings. my clientele is mostly people on vacation here in Southwest Florida, but after Hurricane Ian came through, it really did a number on our hotel and tourism industry. for the past two years, I've done about. 25% of what I did leading up to, as far as the number of families and weddings that I photographed. So it's a lot less than I did before, but it's been an interesting thing where simultaneously I've had these opportunities come in to write a book and to, do a workshop and now do a course. And I've had these opportunities show up that, filled in that space a little bit Been able helping me to get the word out about people being more organized with their photos and keeping them safe and doing those steps to make sure that they don't go through what I saw through Hurricane Ian.
Megs:That's incredible. I love that you're sticking with your first passion and your first hobby, but you've created it into so many more opportunities for you to take your knowledge and expertise to educate others. What a benefit to other people that you're able to share that through courses, through books, through, all these different means to get the word out. we live in that world where we are privileged to get the information out in a different way and that's what I love about having a DHD and being an entrepreneur too, is that you're creating this world where you not only get to live your favorite passion, but you've got all of these passions that have come out of it because. You're just thinking outside the box. You've got this incredibly creative brain that's coming up with all of these other ideas to share with the world and what a gift to us that we get to receive on the other side.
Krista:thank you for that. It's really put a spotlight on my Zigzag, A DHD brain, though I'll
Megs:Yeah.
Krista:I, for anybody who's looking at careers right now, being a wedding and family photographer is very A DHD friendly. it's. Structured and, exciting at the same time. You're doing things and there's timelines. it worked very well for my brain. I'm still navigating this new path of having these things going on.'cause one day I wake up and I've gotta work on a course and then just today, the cover design was sent to me from my publisher for my book. So I had to look at that, but at the same time, another organizer wants to do a workshop with me and I I'm still working on making this work without being too, ping pong in my brain. It takes a little bit more effort I think.
Megs:Yeah, I think it. I remember when I first left for college, I thought I needed to pick a career. I thought I had to pick one thing, like a major. I had four majors before I finally decided on something, and really, I just thought that I needed to pick, and I was so jealous of these people who knew what they wanted to be when they were 10 years old and then just went with it. I'm like, I don't know what that is. I have so many interests and there's so many things that I know I could be good at. But you are living this A DHD dream because you are pursuing your hobby, but then you're also pursuing all of these other side hobbies at the same time. And I just feel like that gives us so much forgiveness because I, even starting the podcast, I thought I was gonna go into this podcast teaching people how to create Pinterest perfect pantries. And then I was like, whoa, there is so much that we do not understand about organizing. And now it has evolved into something so much bigger. And I have so many different ideas on how to take it in a different direction while also keeping this main. Area for people to continue to learn and enjoy from. what a cool opportunity for us to do whatever the hell we want in so many different arenas.
Krista:Yes.
Megs:Ping pong away. what's one of your favorite stories when it comes to. People finally getting their photos in order where they feel like they have control over that part of their life and they've been able to share that with you.
Krista:a lot of the people I. Talk with that I'm really directly talking with are more people who've been through a tragedy, whether it's hurricanes? home fires. There's been a lot of situations where they're contacting me after they've been through a tragedy and lost half of their photos. So we're trying to salvage half of'em. So that's more of the people I'm talking with. almost on a daily basis. I have people that have some sort of catastrophe, which is how. Prevalent. That really is, and that's testament to the fact that we do need to keep our photos safe. damaged homes and also digital malfunction happens more often than I think anyone realizes. but to have a single story that was the. Best. there's, one woman that I helped, she is actually a retired, emergency room doctor. So a very intelligent woman, but she had no idea on just some basic things you could do to back up your photos. So we just sat down together and I worked through that with her. that one has always just stuck with me because not knowing how to digitize. A print photo or not knowing how to get your photos off your phone has nothing to do with how intelligent somebody is, and sometimes the tech world they're not very welcoming and friendly. you wanna get your photos off your phone, you instantly get treated like you're stupid if you don't know what a terabyte is, people aren't friendly in that arena. I love. How I was able to help this one woman because she literally been around the world and saved lives and done these amazing things. She's probably one of the most intelligent people I've been around, but still had no idea on some basic things, which to me is proof that, doesn't have anything to do with, how smart or how neurotypical someone is. it's its own little compartment. And I've been lucky that it's been my whole life that I've focused on this. So for me, it's easy. that's kinda my goal in general to fill in that gap between somebody who's super techy and sharing tech information in a way that's over people's heads with, just making it friendlier so that everybody has access to having safe photos.
Megs:I think that you hit the nail on the head because when we're thinking about this tech world, I think so many people hold themselves back from life that could make it easier for them to live. Because they know that they're probably gonna be bad at it at first.
Krista:they're afraid to ask because they've been treated like they're stupid. When they asked, what is an external hard drive? it's just sad and I don't want anyone to feel like they can't have safe photos.
Megs:yeah. and like to that point, I. People think that they should be good at these things, right? oh, an emergency room doctor, you should be good at organizing your photos, right? Because you're a doctor, right? you have a brilliant brain, but that's ridiculous. All of these shoulds in a world that's constantly changing and evolving, where the tech is constantly changing and evolving too. I know as a millennial when I was in high school and even beyond going into college in my twenties, things came to me just very naturally, especially in the tech world. Like it was so easy for me to log onto Facebook, create my profile, or even I was coding when I had MySpace you would just look it up, you'd do it, and like you'd figure it out because it was right there in front of you. But. Now that things are continuously changing and evolving, if you don't keep up with the changing and evolving and you're doing the same thing that you have been your whole life, naturally things are gonna feel very different when you try to change. And so when you don't know where a certain button is or you don't know how to do something that you feel like you should be able to do right away, it's very frustrating. And so I tell my clients, and a lot of people all the time is Part of trying something new and doing something that could make your life easier is being brave enough to not be good at it at first, and to ask questions and to say I have no idea what I'm doing. Can you support me? And asking for help. And I think that's another thing is we've gotta get better at asking for help because there are just some, like you and me, like there's so many incredible people that know what they're doing in one space. We still don't know what we're doing in other spaces. This is just where our expertise lies. So ask us the questions and then we'll depend on you to be our emergency room doctor, because I for sure am not gonna be the person that goes in there you could even possibly teach me what you do. So it's, yeah. It's so fascinating, this world that we live in, and I just wanna make it more normal to ask questions and to be okay with that. I was sharing right before we started recording is I was like, oh my gosh, an organizer for photos like this is amazing. And then I started to look at your website a little bit more, and you sent me an email and you've been on the Kelly Clarkson show and on a b, C news, you've been on all of these incredible platforms to share the gift that you have with this world. I'm honored that you join us here as well because. There's so much that we can learn from you.
Krista:thank you for having me. I do appreciate it. love just getting the word out and trying to, remind people just to be proactive, I think. the other thing is, we were talking about people not knowing how to do it. I also think people don't realize how important it is to do it, to back up your photos from your phone, to digitize your print photos, Like I said, I speak with people almost on a daily basis that have been through some kind of catastrophe. It's a lot more prevalent than most people realize, so I love the opportunity to get the word out any way and anywhere I can, so I absolutely appreciate that you've invited me here to chat about this.
Megs:Yeah. And thank you for saying the catastrophes again because it reminds me of the LA fires and there's so many people that have been pushed outta their homes. They were given, minutes to leave without being prepped in a situation that they couldn't have seen coming. most of us think that it's never gonna happen to us. In fact, working in the insurance field, I would ask people if they're interested in flood insurance and almost like 95% of people told me that they don't live in a flood zone. They live on a hill. I was like, okay, everybody can't possibly live on a hill, but yes, and I even just read the book by Mel Robbins, and she was just talking about how, yeah, we hear all this data and this information and the truth out there and how it can affect us. None of us think it's gonna happen to us. people smoke cigarettes, but they're like, I'm gonna be the exception to the rule. or we live in Florida, but you're like, nah, like hurricanes happen, but I won't be affected by it. So how do we get in this mindset to prepare ourselves for the worst when we truly hope and don't want to actually prepare for the worst because we don't think it's gonna happen to us? How do we get there?
Krista:I wish I had the answer because I would have everybody convinced to get their pictures digitized for sure, if that was the case. But I just saw a statistic recently that said one in 10 homes are damaged by a natural disaster every year. it really is. Happening to a lot of people, more so than we think we all think we're safe, and then there's situations that aren't natural disasters. The pipes broke. there's so many things that happen that it is happening. And I do feel like the more these things are happening, I'm being contacted more. especially right now, I've had several people from California, not necessarily their homes were impacted by the fire, but several people have reached out to me asking me where do I start? Because they are close to it and they've realized how it's hitting close to home, literally. And now they're starting to get a little nervous. I wish I knew how to motivate everybody. I'm trying my best, I keep putting out my social media posts and talking about it. I just wanna inspire everybody to do this'cause I will tell you, having. Lived through Hurricane Ian and then started going into homes to help people afterwards. There was nothing in the world that could have prepared me for the things I saw and the heartbreak I felt, and just daily, just hugging people and seeing, just complete devastation. It really, that will completely change your world once you've seen that. I put a lot of thought into, if we only had minutes to evacuate or if we were outta town that day and we didn't get to evacuate and take anything like, are the things that are important to us safe? So I really just wanna share that with as many people as I can and hopefully inspire as many people as I can to take those same precautions.
Megs:I think sometimes. We put it off because we feel like there's always time, right? Like I'll get to that later. And especially with an A DHD brain, we procrastinate a lot of the decisions that we have to make because there are so many competing priorities in our life that are taking over and that it does get put on the back burner. coming back to that perspective on working on it a little bit at a time, a little bit every single day, because we like to think of things as like one whole, like I have people call me all the time and they're like, I'm finally ready to get my house done. I need to get it done in a month, and then I need to move on with my life. And I was like, I love that you wanna do that. Except that sometimes it's gonna take longer. In fact, most of the time it takes a lot longer because it took you this long to get the stuff into your house. It's going to take you maybe half the time to get it out of the house, but at the same time, it's gonna take a good amount of time. And same with the photos. If you've been taking photos for, some of our families out there, 50 years of history of Photos of your family and then your grandkids and extended family, it's going to take a little bit of time to get it digitized and to preserve it. where do people start? if people are listening and they have been affected by the fires, or, even in North Carolina we saw some huge devastation this year, the storms are gonna keep happening and, we are gonna continue to lose our stuff. How do we start digitizing our stuff to get prepared?
Krista:So I think in general, when it comes to getting your photos digitized, what I suggest is collecting everything into one place first, because so many people have, photo albums in this closet and that shoebox in that closet, and my college memories are still at my parents' house, like all of that stuff. Collecting it all into one place and dedicating a space to that if possible, is it part of the dining room table or in office areas somewhere where you can dedicate a space and collecting it all. So getting it all together I think is the first step. And then. breaking it into smaller projects. One of those being then try to get it into chronological order as best as possible. I always say when it comes to getting things in order by date, make it close. It doesn't have to be perfect if it's slowing down the process, I wouldn't put. Too much effort into nitpicking on the exact date things go in. But try to get them in a rough chronological order and then break it up into smaller groups of things. You're gonna scan. A lot of times there's different types of photos, you might have some years you had a Polaroid camera and some that are really old or some are in albums, so the different types and break it into small projects that way too. I think just breaking it up a little bit and, digitizing a little bit at a time is the way to go for sure.
Megs:That's cool. So what is the proper way to digitize a photo? And especially if you don't have a scanner, where do you start?
Krista:For sure. I do suggest getting a scanner, that's gonna be the best quality, and there's scanners that make the process so fast and so easy that. It's fun to do it. I, I do suggest having the scanners doing it that way. there's also an app for your phone called Photo Mine, and that's a great app to use to get, if you wanna just use your phone, it's going to get a scan of the photo to your phone and it's gonna be a better quality than just taking a picture with your phone. and it has some neat bells and whistles. If you have some old photos that are black and white, it will colorize them. It can sharpen some pictures. Get stuff from like the eighties or earlier where. sometimes they're a little blurry. The, photo, my napkin sharpen faces too. So it's got some neat things like that. So those are the tools I recommend to start digitizing pictures. And then there's also great services too. I can't, I, there's some fabulous photo organizing services where you just hand them your pictures and they do it for you. And I think that's something that people shouldn't rule out. it is a little bit of an investment, but I absolutely think it is worth it. After seeing what I saw and seeing the heartbreak I saw. Every one of the people I taught, hundreds of people I've talked to, every single one would pay double to just have it done tomorrow because they would tell me over and over again, it's the hardest loss. it's the one thing that was the most difficult. Like those are the things I would hear. so in retrospect, all of them would invest in hiring A photo organizing service to just digitize those pictures and have it all done for them. So I do tell people now, don't rule that out. If it's something, maybe set a timeframe. I'm gonna do this in the next six months, and if you haven't started it in the next six months, then it's time to just make that investment and have it done for you.
Megs:I love that. it's such a good point too, because I think there's so much that we think that we can do ourselves. When really when we start to delegate and ask people for help, it allows us to reprioritize in the things that we truly need to get done and takes a little weight off our shoulders. Tell us a little bit about the course that you teach or courses.
Krista:so I've done a few workshops. I don't have one scheduled yet, but I'm looking to do one in the spring, so that'll be coming up. and that's more of an online workshop where I work together with people. I have a course coming out that is going to walk through every step of getting digital pictures, getting a scan of your picture. So it's gonna start from the beginning. I try to teach the course in a way that assuming that maybe. You have no knowledge whatsoever. So right from picking a scanner to how do you get the software on your computer to make the scanner work? So I walk through every step of it try to keep it in as many details as I can so nobody feels left behind at any stage. and then I just talk about the different, methods that you can use and then how to take those pictures once you digitize them. I have suggestions for ways to create a folder system and where to keep them, where to store the picture. So I go through Every step of it and, try to throw some inspiration in there to keep the project going. So that's what the course is about. And it's coming out in conjunction with my book that comes out in June, which, is more of a memoir, part memoir, part how to guide. So it really walks through my experience living through Hurricane Ian and the. Things I saw in the people I helped and, what their situation was, what they lived through, and walk through that. And then what happened to their photos in each one of these situations and how we saved them. And then with each chapter, end with methods that you could use to prevent this from happening to you. So it starts with, different situations that are all regarding the hurricane, but then also I lead into digital photos too, so things you can do to prevent losing your digital photos as well.
Megs:Oh, that's so cool. what is the book called?
Krista:Beyond the storm. it's, library Tales Publishing and, it's distributed by Simon and Schuster, so I think that means it's gonna be in all the bookstores, but, we'll find out,
Megs:will people have the opportunity to pre-order it?
Krista:pre-orders will be coming out soon, so I'll announce that on my website that all information will be there.
Megs:Oh, that's so cool. I have not taken your course, but I wanna plug it because so often we take on all of the stuff ourselves and we think we can do it ourselves. When you actually pay for a course and you sign up to take it. You're locked in to getting yourself the more information to feel more confident about taking the steps you need to get your photos under control. We're gonna keep putting it off and keep putting it off until you sign up for something like this where you have someone holding your hand through the process so that now you have the tools where you know where to start and you know how to do it. And now it is about setting up that routine and getting it done on a regular basis a little bit every single day so that you feel like you're making progress. And it's all about the progress. It's about the journey I feel like it could be really fun too. I know I love going through my photos and like just reliving some of these experiences that I've had in my life and being like, oh my God, I can't believe I wore that. Or Why did I put 15 butterfly clips in the back of my head and feel like I needed to take a picture of it?
Krista:I love looking at other people's pictures. That's how much I love photos.
Megs:yes.
Krista:I do tell people when it comes to photo organizing, though, this is not like cleaning the garage is usually what I tell them. This is a very personal and can be very emotional if you're, going through photos. a lot of people I talk to have inherited photos as well, where they've just given 80 years sometimes of past photos from their parents or grandparents have just been handed to them. And that's, it's overwhelming. I think that's a big project that people get. They inherit 10 boxes of photos and sometimes I've heard people 20 years, these photos have been in a box in a closet. They haven't even looked at'em because it's overwhelming. So I do think when you start a project, whether it's your own photos or ones you've inherited, just go into it thinking that it can be emotional and there's a lot of memories there. And it's okay to stop and take a moment, even if it's those butterfly hair clips. Take a moment and look at that and take in That memory.'cause that's ultimately, that's what the photo is for. it's living its purpose at that point. So allow that time and also if it becomes too emotional, walk away from it. It's okay to say, okay, this is hard. I'm gonna walk away from it. don't look at it like we're cleaning the pantry. We're gonna start, we're gonna finish. We've gotta do it like this because it's a very personal project.
Megs:That's, yeah, that's powerful. I went to visit my. Parents back in 2023 before I left my corporate job, so I wasn't organizing professionally yet, but they have this old farmhouse where all of my grandparents' stuff is still there because they originally bought the house and then my parents moved in. All their stuff is on top of it. So like photos everywhere, but also other stuff everywhere. We emptied out one of our side attics and my mom and I were going through her mom's Hope chest, which is pretty common for women to have to put all of their memorabilia and these beautiful things, these keepsakes from their lives in it. My mom pulled out this photo of it was super long. It was probably four feet long. Of maybe three feet long of a bunch of people it looked like they were all at camp. And I was like, what the heck is this? And my mom's like, this is a photo of an adult camp that your grandparents went to, and that's where they met each other she finds my grandfather on one side of the photo. And then my grandmother is on the other side of the photo. And in no world would I have ever said, let me look for someone I know in this picture because it's hard for me to even recognize what my grandparents looked like when they were young and. I told my mom that it's so important for me, and I would love if she felt this way too, is I would love to go through these photos with her so that I actually knew who these people were. Because if I hadn't done that with her, I would've no idea what to do with this scroll that was three feet long of all of these people that were at adult camp that I would've never known that they were at adult camp. But I say that because I. if your parents are gone or you've got all these old photos and you don't know who anyone is, what do you do? Because, I think that's my biggest struggle is I would love to have this is my great grandfather and and this is his family and so on. Like, how do we possibly make sense of all those old photos if we don't know what to do with it? it feels weird to let it go. Because it's our family history, but if we don't know who's there,
Krista:Yeah.
Megs:what is your recommendation?
Krista:My first thing is anyone listening, if you're, I use this as motivation to sit down with your parents today or your grandparents today, and take notes of who all of these people are, because the photos lose value when we don't know who they are. they go from being so significant to being valueless because we don't even know if these are our relatives or if it was the neighbor that gave them a photo. So take the opportunity now, sit down with family and make those notes. for people who don't have that, there are, really crazy new technologies coming out that will help you identify who people are, even in older photos. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I believe ancestry.com right now has. A feature that when you upload photos, it connects it with photos and can tie who it is. I don't know how well it works yet, but I believe that technology is only going to get better. So if there is one photo of, uncle Bob from 1940, the one you upload of Uncle Bob whatever it's gonna be able to connect that and identify that's your Uncle Bob. I think that technology is getting better. I've been telling people lately just, if it is your family and the pictures are important to you, hang on to them if you can, and see, if the technology is there to help you identify who the people are in photos,
Megs:Is that something that you walk through in the course as well?
Krista:You know what? I touch on it, but I don't walk through it. I'm not an ancestry.com user, to be honest with you. that might be my 2025 thing. I've been thinking about because it does connect so much with old photos. I'm thinking maybe I need to just dive in and start researching my own ancestry and signing up for ancestry.com and stuff. But, yes, the old photos, there are a lot of functions in there.
Megs:Cool. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm just trying to think too of the audience. I have a wide variety of people that listen, all ages that are listening to get more perspective and, I would like to, let me ask you before I prescribe this, but Is this course friendly for, people in their sixties and seventies as well as people in their thirties and forties who could take advantage of it and get a hold of, digitizing what they have.
Krista:For sure. Yeah, so a good portion of my audience, like in Instagram, I can see the demographics of who is following me and a good portion of my audience. I'd say I think it was like 85% of my audience is over 50. So I do have a large group of people that are older, in my audience. But I like to keep everything friendly to everyone so that, nobody feels left out. Whether it's somebody who, maybe they're younger, but they don't work in, maybe they work outside or they're not working in technology at all, so they don't have. maybe some skills on how to connect a scanner to a computer. So I've tried to keep it, pretty universal, that anybody could use it and not feel overwhelmed. the course comes out in March, so I have it, it's in the works right now, I'll be announcing it on my Instagram and talking about it a bunch more in the coming weeks. but yeah, I do think what I've outlined and what I've recorded so far is just very, friendly to anyone really.
Megs:Yeah, no, it's such a gift I'm excited for you. I just wanna say thank you again because as an A DHD entrepreneur, I jumped into this. Not thinking too much about it, which is totally okay, because sometimes that happens, right? Zigzagging and I'm just making decisions and, I think coming into this, I thought that I had to prove myself. And yeah, in certain ways I do. But at the same time, to see where you are and how much you've accomplished in not only achieving your dream of being a professional photographer, but then helping people in so many other ways. You're such an inspiration to other people out there who wanna become an entrepreneur and like writing a book and being on podcasts and like Kelly Clarkson, oh my God, she's one of my favorite humans ever.
Krista:She's fabulous.
Megs:Oh, so freaking cool. I'm so impressed with what you've done and I'm so excited for how many more people you get to help out there in our world and you're doing the damn thing. So thank you.
Krista:thank you for connecting me with the world. I appreciate you.
Megs:where can my listeners find you?
Krista:Instagram is my favorite. I am, at the Krista k on Instagram and that's my social media home. But we repost everything to YouTube and Facebook as well, which are the same. and then my website is the krisa k.com and I have an email that I send out every two weeks that's just inspiration and tips. To get photo organized. So I encourage everybody to join that. And the very first email I send out is my free resource guide, and it's a list of 60 different, tools and apps and gadgets. The photo labs, I compared all of my work in one place where you can link to all of my favorite things to get photo organized and to enjoy your photos. So all of that is in one place, and that goes out as the very first email when you sign up to receive my email Inspiration.
Megs:What is your favorite photo storage app that you've used?
Krista:Ooh. So I personally use Amazon photos, because it's free if you have Amazon Prime, which is, you can't beat the price. So I just, it's easy. You just download it to your phone and it automatically backs everything up every night. You don't even have to think about it. So for me, I use it as a backup storage, I don't open it. I don't look at it again, it's just there in case something were to happen with iCloud or if something happened, my photos, I know they're always safe there, so that's my favorite. And then also you could just, you get on your computer, all of those pictures you scan, you easily just, you slide'em over and you can add them to your Amazon photos too. So even, your parents' wedding album, if you digitize that, it can also live in the same place as all of your. So I like that just for the ease of use and the fact that it's a free at right now, it's free. I always like to warn people these things don't stay free forever.
Megs:Yeah.
Krista:But it is free at the moment. There is another storage app that I don't use personally, but I absolutely suggest for anyone who wants simple. And that's called Forever Storage. their motto is they're keeping things for you forever. You pay a one time fee upfront and they keep them for your lifetime, plus many more years. I found just playing around with it, it's got a really nice platform where everything is organized nicely. It's easy to search for things, it's all online accessible on your phone. it's just super easy. So you can add all of your pictures to it if old pictures, new pictures. So I really think that's a great option for people, but it's just you're paying for it upfront so it's not the least expensive. So basically Amazon photos is probably the least expensive option you can get, and that is what I use forever.
Megs:Cool. That's awesome. And is there anyone that you would say don't use this because it's gonna not say ruin your life, but anyone you would deter us from using?
Krista:Oh gosh, probably. Let me think. when it comes to iCloud, for instance, or if you're on Android, Google photos, I think they're great. I would use them, but just know what they are. They are syncing to your phone and they're only one place. Sometimes people are confused and think because they are Your phone and your computer, that they're then in two places, but they are not, they're in one place. if you accidentally delete pictures, which I actually just had somebody have this happened recently. they think it might have been their grandchild playing with their phone. But anyway, a whole month of photos were just gone and they didn't realize it quick enough because you do have that. Backup. Like you have things, sit in the trash can for a while, they didn't realize it. Six months later they went back to find photos and realized this whole group of photos was gone. And there's no explanation for why, but it's gone from everywhere.'cause it got deleted from one location. So that's just one example of how having photos only relying on iCloud, for instance, is not great. You do wanna have, like for me, the Amazon photos is simultaneously backing things up, and that's a different location that is not synced to my phone. So if I delete everything off my phone, it will. stay in Amazon photos. So that, I think is just nice to have that extra thing. I wouldn't say I discourage people from using iCloud. I think it's great to use iCloud. I just think you need to use it knowing what you're using. You're using a sync. Your pictures are still only in one place. They're not backed up. So that's just something to think about, for anyone that's using a sync service like that.
Megs:Oh my gosh. That's huge. Yes. Thank you for telling us. it's so nice to meet you and thank you so much for your time and your education and sharing a little bit of your story. I can't wait to learn a little bit more about your journey and any last words before I let you go today?
Krista:I just appreciate being here. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.
Yeti Stereo Microphone-1:Isn't Krista amazing? I get to meet the coolest people by working on this podcast, and I'm so thrilled to be able to share them with you too. With each and every passing episode, there's something more that I learn not only about my brain, but how we approach different situations and different life lessons. So many things. One takeaway from this episode for me was her perspective on how we used to have to pay for film And getting our pictures developed back in the day. And now part of that process is just paying for the storage of our photos and digitizing them. Now, there's also a ton of different places out there that can do all of this for you, but it does cost a lot of money. I went to a presentation last year on photo organizing. With a local photo organizer in the Denver area, and she was saying that she did A project and these people told her that they basically had enough money to be disorganized, so they let other people do it for them. And I'm like, wow. I think that that's something that I never considered having enough money for it to be disorganized. So super interesting perspective. This month is spring cleaning month in my community, and so I'd love to see you there. We're gonna be doing q and As, body doubling sessions, some additional information and some really cool tools that I love to release to support you along your journey. And I'd love to meet you and find out what you're working through and see if there's anything that can support you along the way. If you are in the Colorado Springs area, I'm gonna be hosting a clothing swap on April 19th from 12 to 5:00 PM It's gonna be with me and Tara from Style Elevation with Tara. She's a stylist. So bring all of the clothes that you no longer want. It could be men's, women's, or kids' clothing. And there's even shoes that you can donate. You drop off all of your donations It's$10 to get in and you can take anything home with you for only$10. That's it. I've had some incredible luck replenishing my closet and making sure that I walked away with the things that really elevated me and not felt like I needed to break the bank to do it. It's pretty amazing, so come see me. It's gonna be a balanced studio in Palmer Lake, Colorado. I feel like April is shaping up to be an incredible month so far, and I can't wait to see what you're able to accomplish. Oh, and lastly, some of you have been asking for the to-do list download where I talked about just planning my day out each day. If you go to my website organizing an A DH, ADHD brain.com and go to shop, I'll have any of the templates that are no longer available for free there in the shop.
