September Part 3 - Digital Photos

Week Three

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash

Welcome to Part 3 of September’s focus inside The Simplified Year!

This week, we’re turning our attention to the swirling sea of digital photos, those little squares of memory and meaning (and accidents) that so quickly become clutter when left unattended.

Let’s be honest. This one stings a little. Not because it’s hard (although, yes, it can be), but because these images often hold so much. Beauty. Loss. Life. And if we’re not careful, a pile-up of past selves and moments we haven’t had time to process, and were only present for through a lens.

Do you take too many pictures?

This Week’s Focus: Digital Photos

We touched on this a bit with paid digital storage, but this week, we’re bringing intentional presence to the way we store, sort, and engage with the photos we’ve saved across our phones, clouds, and devices.

You don’t need to sort everything in a single sitting. You don’t even need to delete thousands. But you do need to reclaim ownership of your photo archives and make room so you can find what matters, when it matters.

These images are meant to look back on and enjoy, and nobody has time to go through 30,000 images unless it’s their job. When you want to show your auntie what your kid did last week but have to scroll for five minutes through screenshots and blurry duplicates, the moment gets missed.

We’ll be tackling everything from photo overwhelm to emotional resistance, while creating practices you can return to each season. You took the pictures because a moment mattered to you. Think of this as spiritual tending, not just decluttering. Sacred digital pruning.

Why This Matters (Mindset Reset)

Digital photos seem harmless. But I want to challenge that story we tell ourselves.
When you have thousands of unsorted images on your device, your subconscious absorbs it as one more open loop. One more “I should get to that.” One more “When I have time…” (that never comes).

Not to mention the impossible task that would be created for our progeny if we passed on without dealing with our mess (I know, nobody wants to think about this. But someone has to take on what you leave behind. If it’s too overwhelming, they might either dump it all and all your efforts to capture your life story will have been a waste… or they might store it all out of guilt but never access it - in the end it’s all the same.)

But what if your digital memories were accessible, cherished, easy to find, and organized well enough that someone else could enjoy them without your direction?

What if you could feel spaciousness in your tech the same way you do when your countertops are clear?

Photos, when simplified, become nourishment. Windows in time where we can slow down and reflect, anchoring in the memories and moments we don’t want to forget. But when they’re cluttered, they become noise we’d rather not hear, and overwhelm we’d rather not look at.

And the kicker is that so often, we’re emotionally attached to cluttered photo storage because we’re not quite ready to part with the season those photos represent. We fear that deleting a blurry screenshot of our toddler’s scribbled art means we’re letting go of something precious. But no. You’re not letting go of the moment. You’re letting go of the noise that drowns the real memories out and consumes all the time you could be spending being present with your child, not missing the next precious memory.

You’re not heartless for deleting duplicates. You’re a wise steward of memory and meaning.