Oh those many many photos! Part 1, the task

My (android) phone kept sending "space is low, some functions may be affected" messages. The easy thing would have been to use the "free up space" option, which deletes all the photos from the device. They are still backed up in The Cloud and are available via googlephotos on my computer.

That's the easy option, and didn't appeal to me ... because ... I want to have access to my recent photos - um, why?? - well, to put on Instagram, to show people, to look at the cute videos of The Darling Grandbaby ... maybe because I'm so used to clutter?? ... but mostly because I'm totally out of the habit of doing things the easy way (why???)!

Because of the "low space" thing, the useful "delete from device" option isn't working. This is a very useful thing to do, when it's working. You select the photos you don't "need" (see above) to have on the phone, tap on the three dots at top right, and tap on "delete from device". Bingo, some space is freed up. A quicker way, if you take lots of pix at once, is to tap on the date and delete a day at a time. You can unselect some of the pix if you use that method.

But ... I can't "delete from device" at the moment so I'm spending an hour a day at the computer "sorting". The time is written into the (online) calendar for the rest of the month of August. 8am every day is supposed to be the starting time and 9am the stopping time, the breakfast-making time. If I need to start later, I reschedule on the calendar, which is also on my phone, rather than just say "I'll do it later sometime". 

This works for me. Back when I was writing a dissertation I had the short sharp shock of realising that in order to get it done in the two weeks of holiday leave that remained before the due date, I had to focus, really focus. There were kids to take to school, and meals to make, but 9-3 was My Time. The first week, it was so hard to sit down and Get On With It, but by the second week I was "in the flow" and was often surprised when 3pm came and it was time to rush to the school. And, being young and energetic, I could do a few more hours in the evening. It got done, and I had a new skill, something that had been missing in my erratic university career - sitting down to work at the appointed hour.

Later I learned about the value of having a stopping time, and respecting it. 

Just one hour in the files, every day, for a week at a time, that's the plan.

I hope to wrest back enough space, in the final week of August, for the "delete from device" to work. And hope to have sorted all of 2020 so far - up to date on IG, just a few choice "important" pix for showing people, and all the pix and the selected videos of Darling Grandbaby in one album.

With her beloved Blanket, formerly known as Deng

I'm learning that all too often I don't know what I took for granted - for instance, does "delete from device" also remove the photo from an album? The Learn Google Photos blog is proving useful. Also the google photos help - why didn't I look at this years ago?