So while yesterday’s article, Be All There, talked about putting your phone away when you are with others, the one thing you should be allowed to take your phone out for is to take pictures. One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t have pictures from some of the moments of my life. Luckily, I have friends who take lots of pictures, but I’m not very good at remembering to do it so there are a lot of things I should have pictures of, but don’t.

Pictures are important. Particularly as you get older, when your memory starts to fade or your brain is so full some memories get pushed aside (that’s my story and I’m sticking with it), it’s nice to have pictures to look back on to help you remember. Of course, storage is an issue, but with most of our pictures received electronically anyway, it’s easy to use cloud storage or a 1TB external hard drive to save important pictures.

It is also important to spend time organizing, captioning, and dealing with your photos. I have a big box sitting in my living room that I need to start going through to scan, try to figure out who and when they were taken, and then store them. If you do it as you go along, the hope would be that it will be much easier.

Pictures make an amazing gift. I have given and received calendars, ornaments, photo books, and framed pictures that mean so much more to me than a gift card would.

Pictures capture your life. It is an amazing way to keep track of all you’ve been through and all you’ve done and who the really important people in your life have been. So my advice to you is to turn the camera around so you don’t just take a continuous stream of selfies (unless you’re with a good friend in front of a cathedral in Milan) and start capturing the important pieces of your life. Even if you don’t think they’re very important right now, you will remember them later and wish you had pictures. Go out and take them!