4 Super-Organized Women Spill Their Secrets

The Photo Archivist

Michele Bender
 Freelance writer and mother of two, New York City 

Digital Drawers to Die For

Michele’s home-office storage includes a drawer where cords and chargers live in tangle-free bliss. Just below is her showpiece: a photo filing system that holds a decade’s worth of family shots, beautifully organized on colorful CDs. Whenever Michele transfers images to discs, she deletes them from her iPhoto library.
 
 Payoff: “Since having kids, the number of pictures I take is ridiculous,” says Michele. “My computer was so overloaded. Now, if the school needs a recent photo for my son’s cubby or a shot of my daughter as a baby, I don’t have to click through a thousand pictures. I know exactly where to look.”

 Advice for technophobes: “Do it in pieces. If you wait till the end of the year, you’ll never get to it. When you go on a class trip, come home and put the images on a disc―it takes two seconds.”

 Humbled by her habit: “I love having everything in order. It gives me a faux sense of control over my life. But my family always makes fun of me. When I say the word organize, my daughter puts her fingers in her ears. If my son wants candy, he’ll say, ‘I’ll let you organize my toys!’ ”