Kathy’s Corner » Handling the “Overwhelm” » July 2025

As Projectkin, we’re hooked on family history stories. So often, these stories start with the stuff left for us by our ancestors. In Kathy’s Corner, Projectkin contributor Kathy Stone, helps us sort through and make sense of these materials with insights learned in her decades of experience as a professional photo organizer. Explore our calendar for coming events here.Was this shared with you? Welcome! Learn more about our community at Projectkin.org/about. Then, join us!Managing expectations can be the key to sticking with your goals of organizing and maintaining your family photo collection. Today’s lively and wide-ranging conversation included: * Projects vs. Operational Discipline (perhaps a program or process). * How to manage projects delivered in digital form.* How a digital archive such as WeAre.xyz might differ from a photo archive. * How terms can vary and why you want to be very clear about how you’re handling:* Your personal photo backups (such as from your mobile devices)* Your scanned photo collection and how they are backed up, archived, and flow through notations for correcting dates, edits, or metadata* A hub of your photos and how that’s backed up and archived* Completed projects are archived* How a family legacy collection might differ from your photo collection.Kathy also shared a few tools she’s been using in a section we called “Kathy’s Confessions” 😉 * The “where you are on your projects” survey that Kathy mentioned from her publication:* Kathy’s Google Sheet with tabs to help manage the stages of a scanning project. (That’s free for you to use.) As you explore this episode, you may also find Kathy’s notable post Many thanks to our active participants today, including Ann Larkham, Linda Teather, Jane Chapman, and Bill Moore among others. Your contributions added to the richness of today’s conversation, thank you. Get full access to Projectkin at projectkin.substack.com/subscribe