The Right Tool For The Job

I’ve spent a good portion of the past few weeks painting trim in my house. The kids leave to school and I don my paint clothes, pull out my favorite paint brush and paint. With everyone gone, things are usually really quiet. As I paint, my mind wanders to different things I am working on and thinking about. Lately I’ve been thinking about how the way I paint has changed.

I used to spend hours masking off trim and doors to protect them from paint when I painted walls.  I never paid much attention to the paint brush I used to paint corners and edges, I paid more attention to my masking job. Yet when I’d pull up the tape after painting, I’d inevitably see tiny pieces of paint bleeding through. Over time I thought that was normal.

Fast forward a few years and I had a conversation with my brother-in-law who had once painted professionally. I asked him which tape was best for masking and was surprised to learn he never used tape. He explained,

“It’s all in the brush.”

I learned that day that it wasn’t my technique or masking process, the secret to less stress and a better paint job was all in the tools I used. So now I have a Purdy Cub. It’s allowed me to paint close to 3000 linear feet of trim with perfect lines and no tape.

I love this brush because although it is a bit on the expensive side, it saves me so much time and money (that blue masking tape is pricey). No more masking trim to paint walls and then masking walls to paint trim. I just paint. It allows me to quickly and efficiently get the job done. It’s the right tool for the job.

Which brings me back to digital organization (you know I have to go there).

Sometimes we hang on to a tool or software or process because it’s all we’ve known. 

Sometimes we hang on because we don’t want to spend the money to make a change.

Sometimes we hang on because it’s what everyone else is doing and doing something different is scary.

Sometimes we hang on because we subconsciously sabotage our efforts for success, making things more complicated than they really need to be.

I’ve done all of the above and more.

It’s about life design. We each only get so much time. Do you want to spend it frustrated, endlessly organizing? Or would you rather make memories? I choose to make memories.

In order to have time to make memories, I have to have software, process and workflow that capitalizes on the tools of technology to efficiently get the work of organizing them done. I have software that works with the way I think. I also have a workflow that combined with my software allows me to spend time with the people I love doing the things I love most.

Sometimes finding photo flow comes down to centering your flow around the right tools.

Don’t worry if your tools and process are simple – what matters is that they work for you.

Remember that.

Remember that the most important piece of memory keeping is memories. Center your photo flow on the tools and process that support you and use technology to give you more time to make memories.

To borrow from a favorite saying, the truth is that when it ‘s all said and done, no one is ever going to say, “I wish I spent more time organizing my photos.”