By Alt Channel teacher Justin Hackworth.

Sometimes you need to get that blog post up right away and don’t have a lot of time to search for, or shoot, the perfect companion photograph. One way to fix this problem is to plan ahead and start creating your own stock photo library.

Start taking photos that might have a broad interest or could easily complement a variety of themes, even if you don’t currently have a use for them.

Photograph things like clouds, backgrounds, textures, sunsets and other abstract images that can be used to illustrate a number of different ideas. Everyday objects, like old books, a typewriter, silverware, tools, and cameras can work as well.

By Alt Channel teacher Justin Hackworth.

With your ever expanding collection of digital photos, you might be wondering how on earth you’re supposed to keep track of all of those pictures. Here are a few ideas to help you out:

1) Keep all your images in one location instead of scattered all over your hard drive.
Create one folder where all the images will go, then create subfolders and categorize them by the day they were taken. For example, the folder structure on my hard drive contains the main folder (Images), then inside that, it may look like this:

By Sara Urquhart. Photography by Russell and Hazel.

You’ve invested time, money, and energy into coming to Alt. Make sure you get the most out of it by carving out a few minutes each day to check in with your goals and review conference highlights. This daily review—either first thing in the morning or at the end of the day—will help you record inspiration and enthusiasm while it’s fresh and can provide a valuable roadmap to your after-Alt action. Use brief questions like these to review each day:

• Did I make any progress toward my two main goals? 
• Was there anything that happened today that I didn’t love? Is there something I can change so it doesn’t happen tomorrow? 
• What are 3-5 things I’m most excited about? (Record them now while you still remember them, and use this list later to prioritize when you get home.)

Immersed in a flood of great information, new people, and inspiring ideas could possibly overpower your normal sense of order and memory. Here are a few other tips to help you remember the essential stuff.