Here are some basic tips to help you streamline your movie collection before things get out of control.
Put Everything in One Place
You can only begin to streamline your movie collection if you know where all of your films are. To make sure you know what you own, you need to begin assembling your movies in one location. Take a day to put all of your DVDs into one room of your home, helping to centralize the inventory you will need to do. Then you will want to take all of your movie files on your computer and move them to the desktop or to another folder which will allow you to see what you own. Of course, if you have let friends and family members borrow the movies you own, this step might be a little more difficult. To help yourself out, a week before you are ready to assemble your movie collection, email or call people who might have your movies so that you can have them all on hand for your organizational efforts.
What Haven’t You Watched?
Once you have your movie collection in one place, it’s time to start thinking about what you own. It’s time to think about what you own and what you have actually watched. Often, we collect movies because we are told they are good or they are given as gifts – but then we never watch them. Put your movies into two piles (or file folders): what I’ve watched and what I haven’t watched. This way, you can begin to see just how many movies you might need to start watching in order to make them worthwhile. As you are making these piles, you might realize that the movies you haven’t watched might be movies you would never miss if you got rid of them.
Which Movies Could You Repeatedly Watch?
You will also want to look at your movie collection to see what movies will certainly be watched again and again – those you will want to keep. These might be family favorites or they might be movies which have a special sentimental value to you. However, you might find that there are no movies you would watch more than a few times here and there, so they might not need to be a part of your permanent movie collection anymore.
