When you save your digital memories on your computer, you’re creating a digital legacy or a collection of memories for yourself and your family to celebrate throughout your life and beyond. You need to consider saving your digital family history in a way that will be super easy to access and understand in the future.

Most people do not have a simple yet effective system on their computer to do this. Your arranging system should have every single memory of any type or format saved in a year by year system. Your life unfolds year by year and so should your memories. This allows you and many others to literally watch how your life developed and unfolded. I believe that you should also have your special occasions saved into specific folders for each unique event. This means that all your photos, videos, invitations, word documents, blog posts, website links, basically anything that is a memory or reminder should all go into the one folder for each special event.

So here is a simple example of what I mean: if you were in the year 2008 you would have a folder named 2008. In this folder you would have another folder titled "12 06 Brenda’s Wedding". In this folder you would have the invitation (if you scanned it or it was sent via email), all your photos, all your video, thank you card, you could even save an audio of your thoughts and feelings if this was a very special event to you.

Another amazing way to add more amazing details and to beautifully wrap up your special occasion is with a digital journal entry. If you create even a short but sweet digital journal entry that adds other interesting details like feelings, outcomes, names of people, places, even contact details and any other amazing experiences then all of a sudden you have this amazing depth to your memories and in turn to your family history. This could all be contained in the same program or filing system. There are now easy ways in which you can actually achieve this!

Not only will this be an absolutely glorious gift for your reminiscing in the future but it will also add a whole new dimension to how your children, loved ones and future generations look through this amazing door into your life. You can leave them a keyhole to peer through or your can fling the door open and get them to walk on through to enjoy your life almost as if they are there.

There are also amazing applications for scrapbooking by retaining this incredible depth of your memories. It becomes a lot easier to prepare for future special occasions by being able to easily find your memories that correspond with presentations of photos or videos you would like to create. The family history applications are endless.

All in all it allows you to know where your life’s memories are saved and to easily view them, share them, enjoy them and preserve them. All you then need is a simple back up and preservation plan. Even that is easy in this day and age if you know how. You won’t regret getting all of this right as you will save loads of time and your children and family will celebrate your life with or without you for generations to come.