Do you get pangs of guilt when you see a friend or fellow photographer post about their newly finished photo book and wonder why you can never finish a photo book?

This is a very common feeling because it’s hard to find the time to actually start and finish a photo book. The process is longer than taking a photo where you can experience the joy later in the day when you import your photos from your card to your computer.

While it takes a little more effort and time, making a photo book is definitely worth it in the end. You’re printing your photos to last a lifetime. You’re giving your kids a photo book documenting the big and small moments of their lives.

Today, I’m sharing 6 reasons why people have a hard time finishing their photo book….and how to overcome them.

1. Too Time Consuming.

No doubt about it, making a photo book takes some time. Particularly when you want to create an intentional photo book documenting your year. And if you’re not constantly making photo books, it’s hard to remember all of the ins and outs of the design program, increasing the time it takes to finish.

Overcome the Obstacle: Develop a workflow. Recognize that it doesn’t have to be daily or weekly, yet finding time to include making a photo book into your overall photography process, makes it more likely for you to stay on top of it and establish a rhythm.

While you may not recognize it, I’m guessing you already have a workflow for your photographs. There’s a specific way you import your photos, the program you use, and when you edit. If you like to post your photos on facebook or your blog, you have an export process as well. You may also be tagging or rating your photos.

That’s your workflow.

Now imagine adding one or two more steps to incorporate making a photo book. Perhaps it’s tagging photos when you edit them to identify what photos would work well in a book. Maybe it’s finding a Saturday afternoon where you edit photos and immediately export them to a folder for a photo book.

By adding photo book related tasks to your existing workflow, you’re making it easier for when you’re finally ready to sit down to place those photos onto photo book layouts.

2. It’s a Chore.

Making a photo book feels like a chore. It’s hard to find time to work on a photo book because it feels like sweeping up cereal crumbs on the floor – you know it’s important to do but it’s not exactly the most enjoyable task to complete.

Overcome the Obstacle: You need to reconnect with your why. I have a great exercise in my free fresh start workshop about clearly defining why you want to print your photos. And not just because you know you should. It’s important to recognize a deeper why.

When you have a deeper why, it creates a sense of urgency and passion for printing your photos, elevating it beyond a chore. If you want to hear how I worked through defining my why, make sure you join my free fresh start workshop.

3. Your Photos are an Unorganized Mess.

Every time you go to Lightroom (or whatever program you use) to select photos, you realize that they are an unorganized mess. You started tagging photos in the beginning of the year but didn’t keep it up and now you can’t remember where you left off. Plus you have so many photos that you want to include in a book that have yet to be edited.

When you think about selecting photos for a book, you realize it’s going to take hours, days, weeks or months to get your photo library organized before you can even start the photo book process.

Overcome the Obstacle: Relax. Realize that it’s never going to be perfect and that it’s better to find a way to quickly select and edit photos so you can print them….then always leaving them in a chaotic mess that no one will sift through and enjoy.

Instead of trying to do it all – organize, edit, select, tag, export for your entire library – find a way to quickly sort through your photos and break up the editing and exporting into small chunks.

One suggestion is to look at a month or year of photos as small thumbnails. This way you see photos in their context and don’t pay attention to the details. Find photos that you love or capture an important event and rate them, tag them or give them a color designation. Then group these photos together, edit them in small batches and immediately export them when finished.

Remember, it’s more important that you quickly select and print 100-200 photos than endlessly sift through and organize thousands of photos so that you never find time to print. Don’t set yourself up for an impossible-to-finish task. Instead focus on the most meaningful photos and, at a minimum, print those.

4. Don’t Like the Templates.

Whenever you get into the design software program, you’re unhappy with the results. The layouts feel cluttered and it’s difficult to work with the tools to create the modern, sophisticated look you want.

Overcome the Obstacle: Always find ways to simplify your design and the layouts you prefer. I recommend spending time up-front designing a couple of core layouts that you can use for a majority of the pages in your book. It’s always better to rely on a few layouts that represent the look you want than re-invent the wheel on every page.

Also, realize it takes practice to get acquainted with the design software and the more you work in the program, the more it will feel like second nature to achieve what you want.

If you are interested in crafting a vision, defining your core layouts and learning how to make the most of the Blurb software or InDesign, check out my photo book design workshops which will be opening up for registration soon!

5. You’re Working Alone.

When you are first learning photography, it helps to be surrounded by other people learning as well as more experienced photographers sharing their work. Seeing other photographs motivates you to keep working on your craft and attempting new things. It also helps to be apart of a community where you can ask questions when you struggle, post examples for feedback, and share when you’ve finally achieved a goal.

When it comes to making photo books, it’s harder to find that motivation and inspiration around you.

Overcome the Obstacle: There are two great ways to get over this isolating feeling. First, find a friend or fellow photographer with a similar goal of printing their photos. Set up a specific goal with a timeframe and stick with it. Motivate each other by sharing progress. Jackie and Daniela co-wrote this blog post sharing exactly how they worked together to achieve their printing successes.

Another option is to join my Photo Book Club. This is a community of women who share the desire to print their photos. This group includes monthly PDF downloads, a quarterly call to check in with your progress, and a private facebook group to ask questions and share examples. It’s a perfect way to connect and share with others who have a similar goal.

6. Excuses are Easy.

Life is busy. And when there is so much to do and watch and read, it’s hard to make time for everything. It’s important to prioritize and yes, that means making trade-offs. But it’s also easy to make excuses for things that you really want to do.

For me, this is exercise. I’m not one to prioritize exercise. It’s not what I immediately and easily make time for each day. I don’t experience the runner’s high motivating me to get out there and workout when it’s raining or cold. I look for excuses. I find ways to rationalize why I can’t exercise today. But I also know, it’s really important for me to do. It is cathartic, stimulating and an important part of self-care. It takes mental work for me to overcome the easy excuses and make exercising part of my daily routine but I do it in order to achieve results.

Perhaps this is how making photo book is for you. You recongnize it’s something you want but it’s much easier to find ways to put this task off.

Overcome the Obstacle: First of all, it’s comletely ok to feel this way and to give into the excuses every once in a while. It’s true, making photo books is not always a top priority. But if it’s really something you want to accomplish in a year, it’s also important to realize it can’t fall prey to excuses every time. At some point, you have to find a way to work it into your monthly or annual routine.

If you’re constantly discouraged that you never find time to work on your photo book – and it’s something you really want to accomplish – schedule 2 hours on a Saturday each month to work on your book. Edit and export your photos in the first hour and spend the second hour designing the pages. Blocking out the time and not settling for excuses, helps you make small incremental steps toward achieiving your goal.

Now I’d love to hear from you – what keeps you from making a photo book?