Do you have a bunch of fun family photos that no one in your family ever looks at? I bet you do. They’re probably all over the place, too: on her camera, on his phone, on the kid’s iPod, etc. I was playing around with my MacBook’s wallpaper and screensaver settings when I discovered something totally awesome. I didn’t think it was big deal at the time, but I’m now realizing how fantastic it really is.

I simply linked all of our family computers’ desktop wallpapers and screensavers to connect to a shared Dropbox folder called ‘Wallpaper’. Then I spent an hour or two putting all of our favourite photos from the past decade into that folder. I also have a shortcut/alias folder on my desktop, so it’s easy to dump photos in as I go now. What’s more, you can link your mobile Dropbox app directly to that folder for easy mobile transfers. One repository for all your photos that displays itself to you every day.

I really just did it for fun, but do you know what we spend a lot of time saying to one another now?

I laughed today when I saw that photo of us when we were…

Math class was about to start, and I saw that hilarious one where we…

I couldn’t believe I once looked like that…

Oh, that was my favourite day ever!

Essentially, it’s prompted my family to talk more about the process and history of our time together. And what do we know about people who talk about process and history as they’re living life collaboratively? Well, they tend to have perspective of the big picture, for one.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re the loudest, most obnoxious family ever. Still, we’re pretty happy reminiscing about those small moments that you shouldn’t forget, yet sometimes do when life’s manic pace takes it toll.

If you’re looking for a way to bring a touch of sunshine into your busy family’s abundance of photographs, try out the below (I’m pretty certain the following has its multiple equivalents for PC).

Posted originally on Nov 17 2012 here.