How much time do you spend in post-processing on a regular basis? Business and family responsibilities make it tough to find the time… but I’m trying!

Over the past few years, I found myself struggling to find time for post-processing. I never had a back-log of unprocessed photographs before… but now I find myself mired in images that are begging for attention. Where did all my time go? Well. I never had a whole lot of time to begin with. So that’s part of the problem. And now, on top of all my other responsibilities, I’m running a thriving business. The demands are time-consuming and never-ending. There never seems to be a moment when I can just stop and take a few minutes to open up a file and get to work.

In fact, because I’m so busy, I often avoid opening Bridge at all. My reasoning was that I wanted to be able to finish an image – and I didn’t have time for that. So, I didn’t even start!

So, I’ve decided to start a new habit. Every morning when I boot up my computer, I open up Adobe Bridge. I leave it open as a visual reminder so that sometime during the day, I will grab an image and put a few minutes of work into it. My goal is to spend – at the very least – just 5 minutes a day in post-processing. And that’s it. It doesn’t sound like much… but in the past few weeks, I’ve actually processed several images that wouldn’t be done if not for the effort I’m putting into setting aside the time. That’s not half bad! Some days I won’t be able to put in more than 5 minutes… but some days maybe I’ll be able to spend a little extra time… and just opening a file and getting started really makes a difference!

I could fill every minute of every day with business responsibilities. But I think I can manage to wedge in 5 minutes of post-processing if I put my mind to it. Don’t you think?