Photo Book Organization

When making a photo book, one of the first things to do is establish an organizational structure for your book. This helps when someone flips through the finished book and it also speeds up your workflow. It gives you a clear structure to help you select photos and to figure out where and how the photos fit into your book.

If you’re making an annual photo book, the structure is easy – you can organize it by month. For a vacation book, you can organize it by day or the events that happened during your vacation.

When it comes to making a cookbook, there are several options available for organization. It could be organized by the meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner), the ingredient, or the season to name a few. While it helps to have choices, often it makes the decision harder to make. And I don’t want you to get stuck so I’m starting a new design series tracking six cooksbooks I own that will help illustrate key design decisions.

In this blog post, I’m starting with the Table of Contents to help identify how other cookbooks have organized the recipes.

Cookbook Organization

With each of the cookbooks I’m sharing, I’m including the basic organization, the title & author, and a few examples of the sections. Use this as inspiration to look in your own cookbook collection and see how some of your favorites have organized the recipes.

Defining Your Cookbook Organization

So what is right for your cookbook?

Let’s walk through a few criteria to help you figure out how you want to organize your cookbook.

Gut Reaction.

Is there one type of organization that immediately stands out for you? Do you always love when you flip through a cook book with a certain organization? If so, start with that one.

Your next step is to list out sample sections and determine how well the recipes you want to include fits into those categories. If you are getting stuck – for example, don’t know how your recipes fit into these categories – go back and adjust your list. You may want to switch out the categories or organizational structure.

To illustrate this further, if you love cookbooks organized by Time of Day but realize you have few lunch recipes you want to include, switch the categories to something more like Food Type and see if that better fits your recipes.

Simplicity.

Making a cookbook is difficult and time consuming. There are a lot of steps that you’ll have to include. Testing and typing up the recipes. Making the food and photographing the finished product. Selecting and Editing the photos. Designing the layouts.

So you don’t want to overcomplicate the structure. While you may love the idea of organizing it by Emotion, you don’t want the structure to further complicate the process. You don’t want to spend too much time deciding on the right categories and how meals will fall into them.

For example, if you’ll spend hours trying to decide if your grandmother’s potato casserole should go into a Family Heirloom Recipes section or a Comfort Food section…select another organizational structure to avoid having to make those little decisions.

What’s Missing.

Another way to determine how to organize your cookbook is to ask yourself, what do you find missing from other cookbooks you have in your collection? You have a desire to make a family cookbook; ask yourself why. Your motivation is probably because something is missing from yuor existing cookbooks. Use this reason to structure your book.  

One example, you love all of your cookbooks but are missing a collection of your family receipes. This informs you to make a cookbook solely of family receipes. Maybe you want to organize it by family members who reminds of you particular dish.

My Cookbook.

For my cookbook, I’m following a combination of all three suggestions.

Gut Reaction + Simplicity:  Time of Day or Food Type is my initial preference for a simple organizational structure.

What’s Missing: For me, what’s missing from the cookbooks I own, is a collection of our standard go-to meals and how these favorites could be arranged in meal plan format. My goal is to organize our favorite meals into weekend meals that could lead into easy-to-prepare weekday meals.

For example, I want to connect how braised short ribs on Saturday could lead to short rib tacos on Monday night. This would also help link ingredients to different recipes. If I’m using dill for a weekend meal, what are other simple meals I could make over the next few days so I’m not wasting the ingredient.

This will take a little more planning upfront but will make my cookbook more useful and relevant for our family.

Now I’d love to hear from you. Have you seen a creative way structure a cookbook that wasn’t mentioned above?

Over the past three weeks, I’ve shared some common obstacles keeping you from making a photo book. All to often, you know you want a photo book of your favorite photos….yet it seems impossible to actually make a photo book.  

You may have too many photo book ideas and not enough time. If so, you need to select one project that will be the easiest to complete or mean the most to you. Stay committed to this one goal and don’t let another enter your mind until you finish this first project.

Or, making a photo book may feel too much like a chore and not yet a habit. I suggested that you find a cue, a behavior that you are already doing (working in Lightroom), and then combine the habit you want to create (making a photo book). When you successfully combine the habit with the cue, make sure to reward yourself.

Or, you constantly have an inner voice telling you will never be able to finish a photo book. If this sounds like you, then you need to re-frame your mindset. Establish a positive voice that motivates you to finish your goal instead of preventing you. Turn the “I can’t….” or “I don’t have time….” into “I will make a photo book.” or “I want to find the time to print my photos.” This simple mindset switch is extremely powerful.

However, I also recognize that life is busy. It doesn’t just stop to let you work on something you want.

It is a constant battle for me to find small pockets of time to address my priority of printing my photos, especially among all of the other priorities competing for my time. And of course, making a photo book isn’t my only priority. It’s not even in the top five.

Yet, it’s still something that I want to get accomplished every year.  So somehow, I have to find a way to make it happen alongside all of the other interests and tasks going on in my life. Over the years, I’ve discovered how to make a quick, easy and beautiful annual photo book.

My full process is outlined in my workshop, In One Hundred Pages. It covers everything from getting organized to making a book, and yes, making sure it happens during one of the busiest times of the year.  

I want to share 5 tips on how to make a photo book even when life gets in the way.

1 – Make it a priority 

Making a photo book doesn’t have to be your top priority, however, it is important that you include it as a priority. I want you to think of making a photo book in a similar way to taking the photos. You pressed the shutter for a reason. You imported the photos into Lightroom (or whatever program you use) for a reason. You go through and edit or post to social media your favorite photos for a reason.

Don’t let that be the last step.

Print your photos! When you print your favorite photos in a photo book, you are making them accessible to your husband. To your kids. For the future. There is something special in seeing your photos curated together in a photo book.

2 – Get clear on the why

Once you’ve made it a priority, it’s important to understand the why behind making a photo book. Imagine what it will be like to have your kids go through your photo book when it comes in the mail. Now imagine your kids flipping through the pages ten years from now. What emotions are connected to that thought? How will it feel to see your kids going through your photos in a book. Hold on to that emotion and use it as motivation to keep you focused.

3 – Get clear on the how

The next step in keeping your photo book goal even when life gets in the way is to have a clear action plan for how you are going to achieve this goal. My workshop, In One Hundred Pages, outlines a clear map for you to follow to organize your photos and print them in a book. However, even if you don’t purchase the workshop, it’s important that you develop your own plan. Break down the steps you need to accomplish in order to reach this goal. Saying you want to make a photo book is too broad. Go deep and get specific. Once you understand how you are going to accomplish something, it’s more likely that you’ll actually see through the task.

4 – Establish your workflow

As you are defining how you will make a photo book, find ways to incorporate these tasks into an already existing workflow. Don’t think you have a workflow? I’m betting you do. If you take photos, import photos, edit photos, or share photos, you have a workflow.

Find out how you can insert printing your photos into the workflow you’ve already created. Go back to the Cue – Habit – Reward system and figure out what you can task you can add to your existing process to make it easier for you in the end. If you export a photo to share on Instagram, immediately export it again with the setting needed to print the photo. It can be as simple as that.

5 – Find an initial win – to build momentum

Finally, create a small, easy-to-accomplish task to have an initial win and build momentum. This first win is crucial in establishing the habit you want to create. It helps you realize that it’s possible to print your photos and it doesn’t have to be hard, stressful or overwhelming. 

Not sure what this looks like. Let me give you some examples:

Create a folder on your desktop with the name: “2020 Photos to Print.”

That’s easy, right? I’m serious when I say making a photo book doesn’t have to be hard. This first step is crucial and yet so, so easy. 

Ready to keep going? 

If you use Lightroom, create a preset to export photos you want to print directly to this folder at 300ppi and the long edge set to 12 inches. 

That is how simple I want you to keep these tasks to build momentum.

You can do this!

And if you want even more guidance, make sure to sign-up to In One Hundred Pages workshop!

This is your mindset around printing your photos in a photo book. I want to spend time today addressing and adjusting your current mindset to make sure it’s helping you achieve your goals.

Now, maybe you are familiar with mindset…but if you’re not, here’s a story to illustrate. It’s been several years since we’ve gone through potty training in our house. However, we still go through times where we have to consistently work with our kids to be……well…..regular.

Recently, we were going through a dry spell and after several days of my daughter telling me she couldn’t go, I told her that she needs to change what she’s saying and to say “I can” instead of “I can’t”. I reinforced that she needed the confidence to believe in words “I can”. Sure enough the next day, she was able to go!

She was so excited to realize that changing her attitude could help her accomplish something. Simply by approaching the situation with a different mindset led to her success.

It’s this exact shift in thinking that you need if you keep talking yourself out of making a photo book.

Start paying attention to what you think about your ability to print your photos in a photo book.

Do you tell yourself that you have too many photos to ever get organized to print them?

Do you make excuses about why can’t finish a photo book project?

Do you immediately tell yourself you don’t have the time it will take?

Once you notice the thoughts you have, I want you to shift the language to be positive; to reinforce that you can make a photo book. Finally, I want you to have the confidence in the words. This voice should stay with you throughout the entire process. You can do this!

As I’m sure you already know, it’s not enough to simply say you can do something. You have to have the action to back it up.

If you need help with the action or implementation, I developed a workshop, In One Hundred Pages, to help. This workshop covers what you need to easily and simply start -and finish- a photo book. 

Consistently making a photo book comes down to creating and reinforcing habits. For those who can never seem to make a photo book, it’s because it hasn’t become habitual for you yet. So in today’s email, I want to help you figure out how to make printing your photos a habit.

One method I learned from Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit, is to pair a habit you want to create with a habit or action that already exists. Then you need a reward for whenever you successfully complete the behavior you want. This is summed up as:

To illustrate how this works, I want to focus on a habit I’ve recently created in my life: consistently working out. Even with the best of intentions, it’s always a challenge for me to incorporate working out into my daily routine. So….I thought I would test out the Cue – Habit – Reward process.

Every morning, I look forward to my cappuccino. And every morning, we have the craziness of getting the kids ready and out the door for school. Right away, I have a reward (cappuccino) and something that is already being done (getting the kids ready for school). So I sandwiched the habit I wanted to create (working out) in between.

Once my kids are out the door, I start strength training exercises I can easily do from home. After I’ve gotten my heart rate up and finished a few push-ups and lunges, I drink a tall glass of water. Now, I’m ready for my cappuccino! The best part is, I’ve finished the action I’m most likely to put off, before 8am.

Now let’s look at how this could work for making a photo book. As you know the trick to a faster photo book is to keep your library organized with photos tagged (or rated) and edited. So for this habit, I’m focusing on organizing my photo library.

 Cue:

Select a time or existing habit already present in your life. Try to pick an activity that is consistent (recurs weekly or monthly) and has some flex time associated with it (either before, during or after).

One example in my life at the moment: my daughter’s ballet class on late Saturday morning. While she’s in her lesson, I have about 75 minutes of free time. In this example the cue is when my daughter heads into her ballet practice room.

Habit:

Organize your photos with the purpose of printing in mind – tagging/rating/editing.

While my daughter is working on her positions, I open up Lightroom and go through my library. I delete, rate, and/or tag photos in the Library module. Then I filter the photos I want to print in the Develop module and go through my quick edit process.

Reward:

Once you’ve spent time organizing your library, make sure to reward yourself. The key is to make sure this happens right after you finish the habit.

After ballet class, I take my daughter out to a girls’ lunch to celebrate.

Here are some other examples of creating a Cue-Habit-Reward process for organizing your photos. 

Cue: The opening screen of Lightroom (or your preferred photo organizing/editing program of choice).

Habit: Spend at least the first 5 minutes tagging/rating/editing the photos that you want to print.

Reward: Once you finish working on the photos you want to print, then you can go back to the reason you opened Lightroom.

Cue: Inserting and importing photos from your camera.

Habit: Immediately delete unwanted photos. Tag/Rate photos you want to print. Edit only those photos.

Reward: A small piece of dark chocolate. (Or pick any other treat you keep around the house.) A good  trick is to only have this reward when you import photos and immediately prep them for printing.

The key is to find something that will fit into your routine, your lifestyle. Use this example as inspiration to brainstorm potential cues and rewards that you can use to create a photo organizing habit.

To make this habit work, you need to really focus on the cue – habit – reward for at least the first 30 days. I know….it takes mental effort; however, the more you can pay attention to it in the beginning, the more likely you’ll create a habit that will stick for the long term.