Start by collecting photos from everywhere they're hiding: shoeboxes in closets, albums on shelves, drawers, phones, computers, cloud storage, old hard drives, memory cards. Bring everything to one central location—dining table, living room floor. Include physical prints, digital files, and old negatives or slides if you have them. Ask extended family if they have photos to contribute (grandparents often have treasures). The goal is seeing the full scope of your family's photo collection. You might find hundreds or thousands of photos—don't panic. Just gather them all for now. Discuss why this matters: photos capture memories that fade, they tell your family's story, and disorganized photos are forgotten photos. Once you see everything together, you can start organizing.

Now organize the chaos. Start by sorting physical photos into broad time periods: before you were born, your early childhood, elementary school years, recent years. Use labeled boxes or piles. Within each time period, sort by theme: birthdays, holidays, vacations, school events, everyday moments. Do the same with digital photos on your computer—create folders by year and event. Let your child help sort: 'Does this photo look like you were a baby or a big kid?' This teaches chronology and categorization. As you sort, tell stories: 'This was your first birthday—you smashed cake everywhere!' Remove duplicates and blurry/bad photos (you don't need five almost-identical shots). Keep the best version of each moment. This process takes time but reveals the narrative of your family's life.

Choose the most important physical photos to digitize for backup and sharing: milestone moments, favorite family portraits, photos of relatives who've passed away, irreplaceable images from before digital cameras. Use a scanner (flatbed scanner or phone scanning app like Google PhotoScan) to create digital copies. Scan at high resolution (300+ dpi) for quality. Name files clearly: 'Smith_Family_Christmas_1995.jpg' not 'IMG_001.jpg'. Save digitized photos in multiple places: computer hard drive, external hard drive, and cloud storage (Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox). This protects against loss from fire, flood, or hardware failure. Let older kids handle scanning and naming while you supervise. You won't digitize everything today—prioritize the most precious 50-100 photos and plan to do more over time.

Now make your organized photos accessible and enjoyable. Choose display methods: physical photo albums (classic books with sleeves or adhesive pages), digital photo books (order online from Shutterfly, Snapfish, etc.), wall displays (frames, collages, gallery walls), digital slideshows (for TV or digital frames), or shared online albums (Google Photos albums for family to view). Pick a project to complete today: maybe a 'This Year' album with highlights from the past 12 months, or a wall collage of family portraits through the years. Involve your child in design decisions: 'Should this photo go here or there? Which picture is your favorite?' Creating albums transforms a pile of photos into a curated story you'll actually look at. Print select digital photos to include—don't let great images stay trapped on devices forever.

Make photo organization a habit, not a one-time project. Set up systems: create a folder structure on your computer with year/month subfolders and commit to sorting new photos monthly. Use auto-backup from phones to cloud storage so photos are never lost. Schedule an annual 'photo day' to print favorites, update albums, and organize the year's collection. Label physical photo storage clearly ('Family Photos 2020-2025'). Discuss sharing photos responsibly: ask permission before posting others' images online, respect privacy, and send copies to family members who'll appreciate them. Teach your child that preserving memories is an ongoing responsibility. Years from now, you'll be grateful you stayed organized. The effort you put in today protects tomorrow's nostalgia.