The Lazy Genius Podcast - #185 - How to Think About Holiday Photos

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

I get asked a lot about photo storage all the time, and I haven’t talked about it at all because I’m not an expert. But lucky for you, I’m joined by someone who is an expert on today’s show! Casey von Stein aka Miss Freddy is a photo organization guru, and she’s here today to help us think about the holiday photos we’re taking this year, the areas where we can be lazy when it comes to photo storage, and how we can start small in organizing our files. She’s truly the Lazy Genius of photos. Stuff Mentioned Get 20% off Miss Freddy’s Backup Bootcamp using the promo code LAZYGENIUS Snag an idea or two from Miss Freddy’s photo gift ideas blog post. Follow Miss Freddy on Instagram or check her out online at her website. Get The Lazy Genius Way for yourself or as a gift this holiday season. Pinhole Press is a great resource for photo gifts 1 Second Everyday App This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to the lazy genius podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. Today is episode 185, How to Think About Holiday Photos. I get asked about photo storage all the time and I haven't really talked about it at all because I'm not really an expert. Lucky for you, today's episode has someone who is. I am joined by Casey von Stein. or Miss Freddie, which is her easy to remember photographer name and her handle on Instagram. She is a photo organization guru and fellow permission giver in the area of photos. We talk about how to think about the photos that we're taking over the holidays, where we need to be lazy and let go of some things, how to start small with organizing our photos,

and some spectacular ideas on holiday gift ideas that feature your photos. I left my conversation with Casey feeling so, inspired, but not freaking out, rushing to go do the next thing and get it right. She is truly the lazy genius of photos. And I can't wait for you to learn as much from her as I did. So here's me and Casey. So when we were talking about what we wanted to do today, I started to get really wrapped up in like all the different pathways, all the different steps, all the ways that we can, you know, kind of like attack and get our photos under control and, you know, Because one, the most outside of people asking me if there's an episode about moving,

the second topic right now is about photo storage. You asked for requests and I saw so many people said photos and I was like, oh, they don't even know. I'm already on her schedule. I know. I know. It's so exciting. So I feel like the reason that I have never talked about it is because I don't store

photos. Like I don't have a system for myself. So it's like, well, I just haven't. Maybe it's because it doesn't matter as much to me. like it's serving me in the way that it needs to at this point. And then one day it won't and I'll figure out the system for it. But as we were sort of thinking about how we were going to do this episode and we're getting kind of not distracted, like the systems are very important.

But you said in an email, you were like, you know, just helping people think about why they're taking photos in the first place. And it's like my brain exploded in the best possible way. And so that's what we're going to do today is we are going to start from where we need to start. We don't need to start from a system first because if you don't know why, if you don't know what matters about why you're taking photos in the first place, what's the point in figuring out storage for them, right? And so I think what we both want to do for listeners is thinking about the holidays. We just want to sort of like zone in on Thanksgiving and Christmas. And granted,

we will likely not be gathering with nearly as many people as we normally do, obviously. And so this is, this is different on a lot of levels. But how can we think? think about taking photos from a professional photo storage person. Can you like sort of unpack a little bit too? Like why is the purpose or the reason behind why you're taking a photo? Why is it, why is it the place to start? Why is it so important? Everybody's answer to that is going to be different. But for me, back when I became a professional photographer, I saw this study that they did. It was back in the 70s where they had kids, they gave them a Polaroid camera and they tracked them for five weeks and they had them make like a little scrapbook and use their photos of themselves.

And there was a 37% increase in their self-esteem from the beginning of the project to the end of the project. And I've never forgotten that because I was like, oh my gosh, it really means something to our kids that they see themselves in photos. It helps them establish their part and their value. in our family to see themselves in photos. But I want to add an enormous caveat on that. Think about how different our photo style was in the 1970s. I mean, holy cow, do we need to be taking the 60,000 pictures that are on our camera role now in order to get that benefit of the self-esteem for the kids?

No. I remind myself of it as to why I'm taking the pictures. It's important for my kids and our family and myself. But we don't need to take. A million pictures. A thousand pictures at one birthday party. So I definitely think it helps to consider why you're taking the photos. Are you someone whose parents or extended family is far away from you and you need to take a picture so you can text them and let them know like you're doing well and what you're working on today?

Or are you someone who wants, like you said, your kids to see the memories and the photos and the joy appearing in your house. So there's different reasons you're taking photos. But the one comment theme, no matter what your reason is, is you don't. necessarily need to take more photos to like adequately document the situation. Like you can take one picture of your kids making gingerbread cookies and send that to grandma. And then that one picture can appear on your digital frame. Like we have an Amazon Alexa show. That's the one that has the screen. And so every day it shows the memories of what we were doing on this day in the past. Oh, I love that. And so a year from now, my kids will see that one photo of them making.

the gingerbread cookie. Now on the other side, if you take 50 pictures of the cute gingerbread cookie making day, I really believe you're going to be less likely to do anything with it because you're going to feel overwhelmed by 50 instead of one. When you have one, you can throw that in a photo gift. You can throw that in a calendar. You can throw it on the digital frame. When you have 50, you're then burdened with, oh, I got to go through the 50 and pick my favorites. And there's probably some junk in there. And you have a total. totally different energy. Remember what you're going to use the picture for when you're going into the event because less is more. You're going to be able to use that photo more effectively

when you just take one. Not to mention, this is a whole separate topic. You take the one picture. You set your phone down. You are going to enjoy that moment so much more. You're going to be in the moment. So you take the one picture, you check it off. Okay, I documented this. I've got the picture for grandma and then make the cookies. I feel like we could just end it right here. in so many ways because it's like you're absolutely right that there I hadn't really thought about the fact that the overwhelm of the 50 photos and why do we do that we do that I do that because I want to get the best one you know like maybe the one I took is is not really the best angle it could be or the light wasn't great or whatever it is when really it's they're all about the same that's why

they're overwhelming because there's nothing to distinguish the 50 photos one from another and so you're absolutely right that there is, as, in this lazy genius community, there are a couple of principles that you are sort of bringing up. One is to start small, that we're just going to take, you know,

the one photo, call it a day. It's all good. And then the other one is actually to decide once, which deciding once is choosing one time what you're going to do in a certain situation and then not having to think about it again. And I think that going into an event,

going into a Thanksgiving dinner, going into the cookie baking, going into the walk around your neighborhood to look at lights or whatever it is, that you know I'm going to take one photo. And then I am going to store these photos here. I'm going to send them to this person. Like you've already decided what the purpose is, which eliminates all of that decision fatigue as you're walking and the distraction from actually enjoying whatever it is you're doing. So I just, I feel like this is so simple, but so like aggressively freeing. Like it's so good. It's so, so good. And I consider my.

myself, Casey, to be like pretty chill when it comes to photos. Like I'm pretty good about putting my phone down. We do have a couple of like paths for our memory making. I've talked about this on a couple of other episodes. I have the one second every day app. I love that app so much. If someone listening doesn't know what that is. It's basically an app that kind of aggregates your like daily, if you use it daily, your videos and you choose one second from a video you take. And it turns it into this like long video of your life like one second every day and it's so beautiful and it kind of removes the pressure from me to take pictures of our life as often because I sort of know that's what our memory making is but anyway I'm saying that to say like I don't feel super overwhelmed by

my camera and by taking pictures and yet what you just said I already am like oh yeah my holidays are already breathing easier like I'm so happy. One second every day app is 100% what I just said. So you take one second and you're like, okay, I'm done for the day. I'm good. That checked the box. And it's one second. And that app shows you how powerful the one is. You see the one second and also you remember all the rest of the following seconds from that memory. And so that's how the gingerbread example is going to be. The kids are going to see the one photo and they're going to remember all their happy memories from it. They don't need a picture of all the 50 happy memories. Also, your point of looking for the best photo, would your kids,

ever really say to you like, oh, Mom, my wish you had taken that in different lighting. Like, I just really don't like the way that I looked decorating that cookie. They would never say that. Neither would grandma. It's like, that's not the point. Can we, let's pivot to another thing in this, how to think about holiday photos. How do, how should we think about holiday photos in regards to sharing them on Instagram? Because isn't that where the pressure comes from? I don't actually as much pressure. Now, granted, my job is on Instagram, but I don't really feel as much pressure to take a photo for my own consumption as I do to put it on Instagram. So if we are thinking, which is, which is flawed. I hear, I hear the flawed reasoning in that, that that is actually putting way too

much. No, that's very real. Yes, but it is very real. So how can we think about sharing our holidays on Instagram or Facebook or whatever? Like for good reason, you know, for people like family members that are far away. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing morally wrong with sharing our lives on Instagram. But how can we sort of approach that process with that same freedom that you've already talked about? So think about how what I said, you take one picture at all your events. You take one picture while you're walking around the block looking at your neighborhood lights. You take one picture while you're making the gingerbread cookies. You take one picture at some other tradition, one picture while you're putting up the tree. Maybe then you can put on Facebook or

Instagram the combination of all of those. So you put it. post like all six of those photos at once in one post about, you know, this is what we're doing this holidays or here's a recap over holidays. And what that kind of does is show the beauty. I mean, there's six joyful, filled moments. And maybe they're not the most like aesthetically beautiful picture you've ever taken. But when you see all six together as a story on Instagram, it tells a beautiful story. So I think you could kind of combine your ones to make a bigger story. And they're in one post. I love that. And it takes, like you said, the pressure off of having this perfectly situated photo. And, you know, and I think, I think I just want to say, like, out loud

to myself, as someone who I have said out loud many a times, I'm not like super great at taking photos. Like, I can get one. I think that's why I feel the pressure to take so many is because it feels like I have to take 50 before I get one that I'm happy with. But what is the, what is the measurement for what makes me happy about that photo. So it's about changing the measurement of what makes it important or valuable or shareable or savable or whatever it is that we perhaps have the wrong metric. I think that's unique too. So you might be someone where, okay, the aesthetics of this photo doesn't really matter too much. But if you are somebody who really, you know, wants to set that bar high for their photography, you can take the 50 photos as long as you're committing to narrowing it down

to one. Because that's the step that we're missing is people take the 50. Life is super busy. They go on with their holiday season. They never took the time to narrow it down to one. And all of that builds and builds and builds to us doing nothing with our photos. So if you are someone who identifies like, yeah, the quality of the photo really does matter to me, then that's fine. Take a many as it requires for you to get the photo as long as you're narrowing it down right afterwards. Aw isn't something we need to travel for. It's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dacker Keltner, host of the Science of happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces

can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Another lazy genius principle that just came to mind is building the right routines. We often with like morning, evening, going to work, whatever. Are there photo routines? Are there like photo like that when you have the 50 or whatever? Like can you help us figure out like what a holiday photo routine could be? Yeah, yeah.

I call it the daily delete. So you do go about your day, take as many pictures as you're going to take. Then maybe every night you're sitting down watching Netflix on the couch. That's how you decompress. Take your phone out, narrow it down to those ones that you want to keep from the day and get rid of the trash right there on the same day because you can decide in that moment. These are the ones that are the best. And then it doesn't accumulate in the same overwhelming way because you've decided these are the photos from today.

Yeah. Oh, that's so good. If you are wondering, because like me, I'm like, well, how do I get that into your head? You're going to be on your phone anyway doing that. You could always set a daily alarm for a certain amount of time when you know you're going to be on the couch. So it just reminds you like go do your daily delete. And I imagine if you're doing it, that's another way to start small. If you're doing it daily, you're probably not taking 200 pictures every day.

Like it's not really going to take that long if you do it every day. And then it becomes a routine. That's really, really good. Okay. So one other thing I want to sort of make sure we hit on because we're talking about how to think about holiday photos. how can we start thinking about holiday photos as it relates to maybe holiday photo gifts? I definitely have some ideas there for sure. I think photo gifts this year more than ever.

How many times people say this year more than ever are awesome and a great solution because I'm usually someone who opts for experiences and I don't think we can give experience gifts as confidently this year as we have in the past. So this is a great year for photo gifts for sure. So this ties into what I just said about you're doing the daily delete and you have, you know, your favorites. And so your camera roll is nice and cleaned up and it's easy to make photo gifts. Let's say you're not that person. Most people are not that person.

My advice is first go back on your camera roll and use that little heart icon to flag your favorites. So rather than focusing on the junk like I just said with the daily delete, you're doing it in reverse. You're going back and you're looking for the best ones and you're flagging them as favorites. So go back, maybe to the beginning of the year. Scroll back on your camera roll and hit the heart icon when you see the ones that are awesome. I think a key to success is spending time to pick the photos first. Don't get on the gift website yet. Just pick your favorites first.

Look for maybe 12 to 20. This doesn't have to be anything huge. Just scroll back, see the things that really jump out, hit the heart. Then head on over to the photo gift website. Bring those 12 to 20 there. And you can repurpose those photos over and over again into different gifts. You can put them into a calendar. You can put the favorite one onto a puzzle.

You can put them onto a notepad for grandma and grandpa. There are so many photo gift ideas. My favorite website that I use is called Pinhole Press. They have the cutest ideas. So my ultimate favorite gift, if you have kids, they have a memory game option where you drop in your photos and you play a memory game with. your pictures of your family and they even have holiday ones where you they're little pictures of elves and you drop the faces of your family to be different elf characters or Santa characters.

They are so cute. I have some pictures of it on my blog if you want to check it out. But once you pick the 12, drop them into a memory game, drop them into the notepad like I'm saying. Picking the photos first, just tapping that heart icon is going to give you some freedom to then focus on design and focus on making the gifts appropriate to whoever you're giving them too. This is why I'm so happy you're here because when I, so I first heard of you, uh, on Laura Tremaine's episode, uh, that, that you did with her on 10 things to tell you. And I was like,

who is this Ms. Freddie person who was talking about photos in this very systemized, but very soulful, slow, small steps way. I was like, she's the lazy genius of photos. This is the best thing ever. And you just did it again with another lazy genius principle, which is to go in the right order. it seems as though we with photos absolutely are going out of order. You're right. Like we go to find the cool gift before we even have the photo that makes sense for it, that the photo itself is the thing that's going to inspire the best gift, not best.

That's not fair. There's not like a best, but inspire a gift choice that sort of matches the person that we want to give it to and all of that. So that is such a great order that we just favorite what we like, winnow that down to like a limited number, a small amount, so we're not overwhelmed. And then we go and look for a gift for the person. How do you, so where in that order of things?

Like, would you put the, who is going to get a photo gift? I think maybe I make my list of what people need first. So I'll be like, oh, I don't have any ideas for the grandmas this year. So they're going to get a photo gift. I might not narrow it down to. They're getting a calendar. But I'll be like, I'll come up with something once I'm on the photo gift website. So I'll probably just make a list of here are the five people that need photo gifts.

go pick my pictures, then go to the photo gift website and be like, they have this great puzzle. That would be perfect for so-and-so. You know what I love about this as we wrap up is that there is so much joy in the direction that you're giving us here. Because you're right. We're not trying to go in the right order or start small or do any of these things, approach our holiday photos so that we're stripping. We're not trying to strip the joy away here. We're not trying to turn this into a machine. We're actually trying to simplify the steps so that the joy of what photos bring comes to the surface again.

It's not bogged down by all the pressure to get the best photo that it is overwhelming because our camera roll is full of too many things that we will never sift through. All of that. Like the purpose here is to bring the joy back. And I feel like so often we think that small steps and simple moves actually take the joy. away because isn't, aren't the more complicated machines supposed to make things better for us? And they just don't. They just don't. And I, and I just love that this, I hear it even in your voice and in my own listening to your voice when you give ideas, I'm like, like I'm excited about it. It's not a drag. It's not a drag. We don't want holiday photo taking or gift choosing or going through our photos every day.

We don't want it to be a drag because what matters here? What matters is, remembering. It's capturing. It's looking back, but it's being present. And so if we can do both with these steps, which we can, with these steps that you're giving us, like we can do both things. We can capture and remember, but still be very, very present. Like you said, I actually, Casey, when you said, you see the one second and then your brain fills in the seconds after. Yeah. I like, a tears came to my eyes. I was like, that's right. That's what our brain does. Like, that we can rely on our on our memories to um they just get a little like reminder you know like a photo is just like a little reminder and so i'm just really excited for people to um especially especially in

this year more than any other people are um yeah that we are we're remembering what matters even about something like photo taking so i'm just i'm so grateful for um this system and soul that you bring to to photos and it's just it's just it's just the best. Okay, so as we as we close up, you guys, you can follow Ms. Freddie at miss dot Freddie, right? Isn't there a dot between Ms. and Freddie? And I want, I'm going to, I'm going to share this again in the new year because this is, I'm not sure that this is the time of year for some people to be like going hard on photo organization, but also it could be if you're not traveling and you're like, you know what, I need a project that gives me life. I want to do something that

is that that matters right now that serves my family because I have this time, whatever. It could be that photo organization and sort of getting some rhythms with your pictures would be of benefit to you, anybody who's listening. So if that's the case, Casey, I know that you have some resources for people. So I would love for you to tell us about those real quick.

Yeah, my most popular course is called Backup Boot Camp. And it takes you through getting all of your photos into one place from all the devices where they're currently scattered. You get to one place. It helps you automatically remove duplicates, automatically get them sorted into folders by year and month. The technology still blows my mind, and I've been teaching this course for years. And it helps you get a backup backup system in place. So if you are someone who feels really overwhelmed or very scared that your photos could be lost because they're not properly backed up, backup boot camp would be a great starting

point. I agree with you. That might be too much of a project for many people to take on right now, the holiday season can be stressful in general. But this year I'm offering gift certificates for my courses. So that could be a great gift idea. If somebody wants to check that off in the new year, you could ask for a gift certificate for Christmas. I also have another course called Family Yearbooks, which would be great this time of year, like heading into January because it shows how I narrowed down my photos every year to my favorites and how I turn them into one family year book every year. That is the way that I have chosen to give my photos purpose and get them into the hands of my family. So that walks through my process. That just takes me a couple hours because I've really tried to make it the most efficient way to create a family yearbook. So that would be the other one I would recommend.

But I have a couple of courses on my website for like DSLR photography and editing and all sorts of photo related things. But those were the two, I think your audience probably would like the most. Yeah, that sounds so great. I'm just really thrilled that people are learning that you exist because my goal in so many of my conversations with people, which are not very common on the podcast, I don't have gas hardly ever. I know. I feel super honored that you picked me. Well, the times that I do, it's because this person is an expert and they are a lazy genius. Like there are lots of people who are experts in different fields, but perhaps they are, they skew a little lazy one way or a little

genius the other way. And I feel like just the way that you already, I mean, obviously, you pulled out like four or five different lazy genius principles without knowing that they were there. It's like, it's such a gift for this particular group of people who are listening who really do want to care when they want to care. Like, it's okay for us to care about beautiful photos. It's okay for us to care about remembering and, and all of that and being purposeful about it. But to do it in a way, that does not feel overwhelming, that serves our own priorities in our life and the margin and being, and like you said, being present when we're making the cookies. Like, that's what we're doing it for is not to sit there with our camera the whole time and be distracted from the very thing

that we're trying to document. So I just really, I really love what you're doing. And I'm so excited for people to connect with you. And I'm just so grateful for your being here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And that's it for today. So I have already, set a daily phone alarm to do my daily delete. I have already started favoriting photos on my camera roll. I've already pulled up pinhole press and died at the options. You could you can turn a photo into a puzzle like there's just so many things. But mostly I have already let myself off the hook to document and organize my photos like a genius but instead like a lazy genius. And I hope you have too. I'm so so grateful for Casey being here.

here today and helping us think differently about our photos, especially our holiday photos. Everything we've mentioned in this episode will be linked up in the show notes. And again, you can follow Casey on Instagram at miss. freddy. That's F-R-E-D-D-Y. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra, and I'll see you next week. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B-plus life, it's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me,

but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.