Top three photography business housekeeping tasks to get done the first month of 2017
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There’s nothing like the new year to start things off on the right foot. Unlike making a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym or give up gluten, this year I’ve prioritized the top three photography business tasks that I want to get done the first month of 2017.
1. Sort and delete photos and video
Every year I make an effort to permanently delete as much superfluous data as possible from the past year. This means culling images from my personal catalogues and deleting as many photos and video clips from commercial jobs as I can.
If you need some inspiration, here are two articles to get you started:
Delete Your Sh!t: Why You Should Trash Most of Your Photos
Delete Your Old Work to De-clutter Your Life
2. Clean up and organize files
This is basically the digital equivalent of cleaning your desk. We all try our best throughout the year to keep our computer files clean and organized – but no matter what, things always get messy.
Now is the time to organize everything you’ve been working on over the past year.
3. Check Backups and Make A Mirrored Backup Archive
I use a Synology NAS which safeguards against drive failure, and all my data is backed up to local storage and to the cloud via SOS Online Backup (the lowest cost NAS friendly unlimited cloud backup option I could find).
However, every year I make a mirrored backup archive copy of all my data. There’s no real rational reason to do this since everything is already backed up – but I just feel better knowing that I have a separate annual copy of everything.
This is also a good time to check your automated backup processes and make sure that everything is still running as it should and no storage drives are nearing capacity.
Bonus – change your login passwords
Like most people, I have hundreds of login passwords for from everything from my bank accounts to my gym schedule. I use LastPass to simplify managing everything and once a year I like to do a wholesale password change. This takes some time, even though LastPass can automate some of the process (and to be honest I’m not sure how effective changing your passwords really is against Russian hackers and the NSA), but I feel good about starting the year off with a fresh set of 14 character random passwords.
What are your top 3 tasks to complete the first month of 2017?
Leave a comment below and let us know!
JP Danko
JP Danko is a commercial photographer based in Toronto, Canada. JP can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
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One response to “Top three photography business housekeeping tasks to get done the first month of 2017”
I create new Lightroom catalogues every year so they don’t get too big & slow. I create one for personal work and one for paid work.
Culling for me is more or less a monthly affair. I figure that time is important to gain perspective so I only try to cull images that are at least 6 months old.
The new year is also always a good time to look at my website and figure out what I should change/update. I’m always embarassed by my website, its never good enough for me, but I rarely make the time to work on it. January/February is generally slow for me work-wise so its a great time to invest some energy into marketing before I get overwhelmed.