Preliminary Findings on Photo Sorting Someday
There are 6,847 unsorted photos. Someday is the scheduled sorting date. Someday has not appeared on any calendar.
PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Subject: 6,847 unsorted photos pending organization Timeline: Sorting scheduled for someday
The Collection
6,847 photos spanning five years. They exist on two current devices and one backup. They are accessible. Finding a specific photo requires: approximate date knowledge, search function use, or scrolling through the archive.
The organization that would make finding photos effortless — albums by trip, event, or person — has not been performed.
The Sorting Task
Sorting 6,847 photos into meaningful categories involves:
- Deciding on the category system.
- Reviewing each photo to assign it to a category.
- Creating albums for each category.
- Optionally: deleting duplicates.
At a pace of 3 photos per minute (view, decide, assign), the sorting task would take approximately 38 hours. This estimate does not include the time to decide on the category system or to handle the unclear cases.
The Someday Problem
Someday is not a date. It is a condition: "when I have unstructured time and the right mood for a large administrative project." This condition has not coincided with awareness of the photos' unsorted state across five years.
The Alternative System
The current system is functional. The search function finds most photos by subject. The date scroll finds photos from known periods. The most recent photos are at the top and are findable.
The system works for finding photos. It does not work for enjoying the collection as a curated record.
The Recommendation
Start with one trip or event. Complete one album. This is one hour, not thirty-eight. One album reduces 6,847 to 6,700 and creates a template for the rest.
The one-album approach has been recommended to this situation before. It has not been implemented. It is recommended again.