Digi Stash Busting

Discussion in 'Scrapping Pad' started by littlekiwi, Aug 12, 2018.

  1. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    Feel like I'm not getting on top of my digi stash - I have nearly 8gb sorted but......120gb not sorted and I find it really hard to motivate myself to sort it - any tips or tricks to make it less mind numbing. I figure the more I sort, the less work Backblaze has to do. I sort by item or theme rather than designer since thats how I scrap but still I get so bored doing it after a folder or two but never really make a dent in it since I keep buying
     
  2. Angela Toucan

    Angela Toucan I keep looking for THAT wardrobe

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    I always tag my kits as I unzip them. It's a good way of getting to know a new kit.
    About 1/5 of my older stash is untagged. I prioritise that by likelihood of using it in the next 2 months. For example if I'm going to scrap summer pages, I'll flick through the untagged kits looking for summer ones, and ignore the winter ones. Or if I've started using wooden pieces, I might check for untagged kits with wooden elements.

    Try to scrap at least two pages for every time you tag an older kit, that breaks up the boredom from stash organisation.

    My fabric stash is in serious need of a sort out right now - no mojo for that, but ....
     
  3. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    I prioritize based on how recently I bought the items. Maybe using your visual history here would help? You could take a glance at the history pages and sort quickly from there? I prefer to see visual previews with kits.

    How are you organizing? Maybe your process could be shortened?

    Personally, I set a timer for 30 minutes and tell myself I will organize or tag photos or whatever for that long. Then I can move on to what I want to do. 30 minutes adds up!
     
  4. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    All of my zip files go into the default download folder on Windows, I then unzip them immediately to my To Sort Folder where they end up living for a long while, then I sort from there into either type of item/color and theme. Honestly the backlog is from not getting on top of it all once I got my laptop last year and I've just added and added and added to it since then
     
  5. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    70GB of that 120GB is just from this year alone. I'm kind of stuck in the older stuff that I bought years ago that while I still like the stuff its not totally me but if I've spent money on it I kind of want to use it. So I really don't know whether I should cull the older stuff totally that isn't 100% me or start sorting the newest stuff first and there in lies the problem, cause I don't make a decision I put it off
     
  6. Meredith78

    Meredith78 Well-Known Member

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    Is it worth excluding some of your folders from the Backblaze backup till it's finished the initial sync?

    I don't have a good system for tagging and sorting my kits. I try to do it as I buy them but I have years worth of kits just in their default folders and I can't find a thing in them unless I flick through the images. Not a great solution.
     
  7. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    @Meredith78 Ive already excluded a bunch of file types. It’s just the sheer amount of stuff to dig through that’s my problem though I have just got my to sort folder down to 108Gb and got rid of a whole folder of duplicates that weren’t even in my to sort folder.
     
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  8. IntenseMagic

    IntenseMagic Some grannies cuss a lot. I'm some grannies.

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    I think I would start by getting rid of anything I know I'm not going to use. It's hard to do that with stuff you've paid for, but if you know it's just going to sit there, might as well get rid of it...like cleaning out closets and such lol. Then, I like Courntey's idea of setting a timer and just doing it for 30 min or so at a time. Of course I am not really one to talk since I am the worst tagger in the history of ever!
     
  9. Tree City

    Tree City Get a stepladder, I'm busy

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    ^^^this is me! I tag my kits the moment I unzip them into their correct folders. (I also add kits to my Excel spreadsheet and I add a preview image--tagged, of course--to my Folder Preview folder.)

    Anyway, back to your question, Jennifer: perhaps you could tag while you're listening to your favorite music or while watching a not-too-interesting TV show. That way you can half-focus on the music (which makes you happy, ergo less bored) or, when you need to give your eyes a break, you can focus on the TV show. And you could tag for the length of one show--either an hour or a half-hour, like Courtney suggested. It's a self-imposed timer. Actually, that's what I did the other night: DH turned on a show he loves that I tolerate, so he knit and watched and I tagged and just looked up whenever I was getting bored with tagging.

    But like Jan said, delete what you don't need, as that is what will really help out BB. Plus, why keep product you don't need, esp. if it slows down not just BB but your own productivity (cuz you have to search through all that stuff to find what you want, etc).
     
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  10. LoveItScrapIt

    LoveItScrapIt I'm a poet, and everyone knows it!

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    This is exactly what I was going to say. Nothing wrong with a good PURGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
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  11. Cherylndesigns

    Cherylndesigns All glasses should be bigger than 1.5 oz

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    I agree with purging! I have old stash that I knew I'd never use and maybe I saved two or three elements from them, then deleted them.

    If they're old, but I still like them, I have a dedicated EHD for just my digi stuff. Those go there and at least they're off my computer.

    I also tag mine the minute I unzip them. All of my TLP files are tagged "TLP_designer". Then, they're in alphabetical order in my document file. The only exception is my Alphas. They're "TLP_ALPHA_then designer".
     
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  12. BevG

    BevG If I can't remember it, it didn't happen

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    I spent about 3 hours last purging old scrapping projects. I archive them off to EHD so that only current stuff is on my hard disk. My content is in pretty good shape as I archived a bunch of it last year.

    But yeah, I hear you on not wanting to toss stuff you paid money for. I have a few kits like that. Mostly I have a bunch of blog hop stuff that frankly, I probably won't ever use. Especially since it is non-TLP stuff and this is where I hang, so I can't post with it anyway.

    @littlekiwi Do you use a content management tool for your artwork? Just wondering since you were talking about tagging. I don't use anything yet, but I have done a lot of renaming of individual files and kit names so that a Windows search finds things for me. I have mine organized by store, then by designer, then kit. It works most times.
     
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  13. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    Start with the new. Here's my reasoning:
    You'll be going through the new and oohing and ahhing over it. Then when you get to the older stuff, you'll feel better about letting it go, because you have so many awesome things to play with that are sorted.

    At least that's how it works for me! It's easy to let go of an older Christmas kit when I know I have a newer one that I love.
     
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  14. littlekiwi

    littlekiwi I charge by the hour for anything before noon

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    @BevG no content management tool here, just windows folders
     
  15. EHStudios

    EHStudios I am more clever than I think

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    When I'm sorting my stuff & come across kits that are "no longer me, but I loved them at one point & spent money" then I make myself scrap a page with what I love most about the kit, then I feel free to delete. It helps the burden part since I then know that I USED IT and now have more space for things that are the me now.
     
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  16. bestcee

    bestcee In love with places I've never been to

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    Did you know: For jpeg files, you can go into the windows properties box and tag there? Not helpful for everything, but most kit previews are jpegs, so you could just tag the preview. And then it'll come up when you search for something. I don't know if that's easier or harder than renaming things.


    (I just bought ACDSee on their last sale because it will tag png's for me)
     
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  17. BevG

    BevG If I can't remember it, it didn't happen

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    @bestcee - I did not know that. I might do that for paper colors. When I had all my content loaded up in Artisan and used it to scrap, I tagged a lot of things. I had probably 70 to 80 different tags. I found I only rarely used them to help me find things. So I am not keen on taking the time to build tag libraries again.
     
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  18. LeeAndra

    LeeAndra A total Betty.

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    Delete everything more than 3-4 years old. Seriously.

    No more stash to organize!
     
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