Four Easy Tips to Find Time For Scrapbooking

“I don’t have time to scrapbook!” I hear this all the time. I am one of the busiest people in my circle of friends, yet I manage to find the time. Here are some tips that can help you to make scrapbooking a part of your busy life.

Tip #1: Schedule time on your calendar. I know this seems too simple, but we schedule meetings, networking, babysitters, vacations, even workouts. If it is important enough, put it on the calendar. Consider working on your projects monthly or quarterly. Maybe this is your special time on Friday night or all day Saturday. Find a store, community center or a consultant in your neighborhood and sign up to attend their workshop(s).

Tip #2: Find a buddy. Scrapbookers seem to prefer to work in pairs or groups. I rarely hear about people completing their albums alone (though I do know a few who prefer doing it this way). In business, we call them ‘Mentors’ or ‘Accountability Partners’. The methodology is the same – having a partner to help you move forward on your project will keep you on track and help you in finishing those albums. At my workshops I often have several different groups of friends who attend together. They even compete with one another about how much they will get finished during the workshop!

Tip #3: Break projects into ‘bite-sized’ chunks. Create mini-projects out of a larger one in order to get it done through several shorter cropping sessions. Sally is great at this! She spends 15 to 20 minutes at a time finishing a part of her project. She may sort her pictures in one session, plan layouts by event in another, crop pictures from an event, and so on, until it is complete. Not only does she get a sense of accomplishment throughout the process, bus she also has albums to show off.

Tip #4: Consider going digital. You immediately save the time from having to print all the pictures you may (or may not) use in your project. There are a variety of software packages available that allow you to work on an album project right from your computer screen. Downloading paper, stickers and embellishments are easy to use over and over again! Denise just converted to digital and says she is finding that she is actually much more creative scrapbooking digitally.

By using one or more of these tips, you will start seeing progress on your photo projects.

To request your free digital scrapbooking software, go to http://karenfitting.wordpress.com/ Karen Siegel Fitting has been helping her clients keep up-to-date with their photos for over 5 years. Since January, 2009 her clients have completed over 10 albums, hundreds of pages, and have maintained sanity in the effort of keeping their photos managed.