How To Organize Your Boards On Pinterest ~ Here is a way to organize your many Pinterest boards so they are easy to locate when you want to pin something.
When I first joined Pinterest I honestly was a newbie and had no idea what it was all about. I would eagerly find a pin and randomly repin it onto a board without much thought about how the pins and repins were being organized. I began with a collection of random and very generic board labels. The more I pinned and repinned the more I became confused as to where to place my wonderful finds.
I also got to thinking that if I was becoming confused during the pinning and repining process, how was I to easily find what I had previously placed on my boards? What was the point of collecting these images if I would not be able to remember or find what I had pinned in the first place? So I thought I would share with you How To Organize Your Boards On Pinterest! Hope you are inspired!
The Solutions For How To Organize Your Boards On Pinterest…
The more I have worked with my boards the more I have developed a solid system that is very manageable and user friendly for me. I have created an organized system for my pins and repins that I am no longer confused. Here are my strategies that I now share with you:
- I like to see how other ‘Pinteresters’ organize their boards for ideas. We all have our own unique interests. There is no one winning strategy because what works for one individual may not work for another. I highly recommend checking out a collection of other pinners and gleam from them a strategy that works for you.
- While I was checking out to see how other ‘Pinteresters’ organize their boards I came across some who have around one hundred boards. My first reaction was admittedly dismay and questioning as to why and how one can have so many? Now that I have really checked out the pinning and board process, it is these pinners who know what they are doing. As I write this updated post, I too now have around 130 boards that I can keep track of quite easily using the organizational system that I have developed.
- As mentioned previously, I first began with very generic boards. But the more I collected pins the more I began to lose track of what pins I had collected and what boards I had created. I then came up with the strategy that the more specific you make your boards, the more easily it is to find a place for your new pins and it is easier to locate where you placed your collection of growing pins.
- I now label and form my boards with a three-category system. The first category is the word ‘My’. This introductory work synthesizes who I am and is a succinct way of beginning my label. Amazing what one two letter word can do! Then I create a main category for each of my interests. For example, some of the main categories so far include: My Teaching, My Home, My food, My Organizing, My Interests, My Inspirations, My Cosmetics, My Special Moments, My Reading, My Celebrations, My Travel, My Fitness, My Crafts, My Fashion and I am sure new categories will emerge over time.
- Then I create sub-categories for each general category. For example My Organizing is broken down into the following sup-topics: My Organizing: Jewelry, My Organizing: Bathroom, My Organizing: Laundry Room, My Organizing: Studio/Office/Craft Room, My Organizing: Freezer, My Organizing: Pantry, My Organizing: Lunches, My Organizing: Garage, My Organizing: Baby and I am sure many more sub-categories will emerge.
- If I have a pin that does not fit into a sub-category, I just pop it into a main category for that topic. For example, here is a collection of pins that are all related to organizing but I don’t have a specific board for them to fit into.
- Now I have no trouble finding a unique location for the different pins that I find. Occasionally, I will come across a pin that is applicable to more than one board. If this occurs I will repin it more than once. This strategy takes away ‘second guessing’ as to which board I had placed the pin.
- I don’t know if you have done this, but I have occasionally placed my pin in the incorrect board. You can now just click the edit button on the pin and select a different board where you want it to be relocated.
- As the followers continue to grow, Pinterest has been making ongoing improvements. As I write this blog, they have just implemented a new modification that will help us with our boards. You can now customize your board by selecting a board cover for each of your boards. Just click edit board cover and select the image that you want to represent your board. This is a brilliant idea for creating a strong visual for identifying your personal boards and thus helping you organize your growing collection.
You will notice that when you visit me on Pinterest I have renamed my boards since writing this post. I have started all of my boards with the word ‘Time’. The reason for this is so that all of my boards are in the same section. It backs it a lot easier to find the board I am looking for when they are clustered together alphabetically.
In conclusion, pinning and repinning are essential to building your pins on Pinterest. However, organizing your growing collection is just as important. Take time to strategize a plan for how you are going to organize your boards as well as how you are going to label each of your boards as they are created. My strategy is to create a main category for my interests and within each main category create sub-categories. This organizational system makes it a lot easier to place my pins as well as retrieve them at a later date. Lastly, have fun checking out to see how other pinners are organizing their pins and boards for ideas as to how you want to organize yours.
Here is where you can see how I organized my boards on Pinterest: Time With Thea. I also invite you to check out to see how other pinners organize their boards to inspire you to create system that works for you! In the meantime have fun pinning and organizing!
If you found this information useful you will also want to read the following Pinterest related articles:
How To Move Your Pins On Pinterest
My Reasons For Checking Every Pin Before Pinning
Hope this helps my fellow Pinners who enjoy Pinterest as much as I do!
This article was was included in Best How Tos And Tips From Time with Thea 2014. Here are the rest of the best!
Thanks for stopping by!
Hi, thanks for stopping by my blog and for the “like” and comment! I’ve not yet jumped into Pinterest myself, but it was helpful to read about your experiences with it. Thanks!
Thanks! We will have to keep in touch. It appears we have similar interests. Take Care.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing, I haven’t been on pininterest much.
A friend and colleague got me onto Pinterest and I have quite enjoyed it. I have been inspired by many ideas and I find it quite fascinating to see what other people are interested in.
I love Pinterest and like you, started out with a few boards before expanding. I have several organizers boards, broken down into subcategories. I’m also finding it a useful way to pin ideas for various clients.
Nice banner on your blog. I love the sage green.
I will definitely check your Pinterest boards to see how you have organized them. I am always curious to see how others have not only organized their pins but also how they named their boards. Some are very creative! Thanks for the compliment on the blog banner. I took a bunch of pictures in my studio/home office and yes it is that colour. It actually is a granny smith apple green. I chose it because I wanted a bright colour for the upstairs room that faces direct north. I am very happy with how the colour turned out. Even my husband likes it who was a bit unsure in the beginning. Thanks so much for your comment!
Very nice! We’ve used a lot of green in our home (my favorite color). I think most colors from nature have a lot of appeal.
I so agree! Little did I know at the time the green colour was selected and painted that it would end up being such a vivid colour for my blog banner about three years later. Stay in touch…. Thea
Will do!
Great ideas on Pinterest. I have mine organized so I can find things easily myself without having to click on too many boards. But they not nearly as detailed as you list here. I’m always so excited when someone likes and re-pins stuff that I like.
Sometimes I pin my blog post so it is on Pinterest and might generate more interest too. In fact, i have a post that tells just how to set up your blog, including the logo, to get people to your Pinterest site: From Your Blog to Your Pinterest page: http://lizjfoxdesign.com/2012/07/25/how-to-get-someone-to-your-pinterest-site/.
Hi Liz, Interestingly, the blog I wrote “How to Organize Your Boards on Pinterest” has been by far my most visited blog so far. When I first joined Pinterest I had not idea what I was doing and was pinning all kinds of things but was having trouble tracking what I had pinned. So with my organizational mind, I took some time to make a plan and organize my boards and now I am more selective about what I pin and where I pin it. I checked out your blog about how to get someone to your Pinterest site. I will definitely follow your very clear instructions! Take care, Thea.
I hope you get lots of visitors to your blog from there. Happy Pinning, Thea.
Thanks! Pinning is a lot of fun. I love the hunt for new pins that I find when I am reading blogs.
I am going to use this to organize my pinterest blogs. I feel like I will enjoy Pinterest and actually use the ideas I pin more with your tips.
Thank you.
Thanks Carleen, I put a lot of thought into how I wanted to organize my boards because I was getting overwhelmed and frustrated trying to find pins I had pinned. Then I wrote this blog thinking other pinners might be thinking the same thing as me. Little did I know that there would be so much interest! Thanks for stopping by! Hope it helps. ~Thea
Thank you so much for this! I’ve been wondering for over a year if Pinterest was ever going to come up with a sub-category format and now I don’t have to worry about it any longer! Thank you for your help. I will be passing this along on Pinterest but also to my mom and close friends that use Pinterest often.
Hi Adria, Thank you so much for your positive comment. It did get quite overwhelming trying to make sense of where the pins should go so I could find them at a later date so I just developed my own system with the main category and then the sub-category for the various topics. It really works for me and I am thrilled when I see other pinners are using the same system or very similar system organizing their boards. I am so glad you find it useful and thanks for sharing it with others! Take Care, Thea
Thanks for all this great information. I’m fairly new here but quickly learned that you can MOVE a pin using the edit button. There’s no need to re-pin and delete. 🙂
Thanks Janis for sharing this tip. I know you can move boards around in the edit function but I did not know you could move your pins to different boards too! I really appreciate that you stopped by! ~Thea
I’m so glad my sister shared this post on her Facebook page! I swear, I could have written the opening paragraph!! When I first started Pinterest, I was embarrassed to have too many boards! Can you imagine that? So I just sort of lumped things together. I need to go do the sub category thing! Too many things on my Food/Recipe board! I also thought it redundant to pin same item on two of my boards, but have done it a couple of times for the very reason you cited in your post, Sooo now feeling very inspired and realizing most ACTIVE pinners have loads of boards, I’m off to Pinterest for a few days of organizing! Thanks thanks thanks! I’m actually feeling giddy!
Hi Pam! I am so glad my article was such a help. As you know I started off not having a plan for organizing my pins and it got quite overwhelming so I created this system. Now I can usually quickly find a particular pin. It is also easier to review my pins according to the different categories. Please thank your sister for spreading the word and posting it on her Facebook Page! Thanks so much for your incredibly positive comment! ~Thea
Great post and great tips Thea! I completely agree and have personally found that organizing and properly naming your pinboards helps tremendously when finding things — plus allowing other followers to get a sense for who you are and what they might be interested in!
Kenley
Thanks Kenley! We are totally on the same page when it comes to Pinterest! ~Thea
Hi I am actually trying to organize my own but I don’t see the edit button using the iPad app? Please help
Hi Leslie, I am glad to help! I enjoy Pinterest on the laptop and using the app on my iPad. Both are quite different. This is what you do to edit the name of a board: after you open up the app, click on the three bars in the upper left hand corner … then tap on your Pinterest name in the lower left hand corner and this will take you to your boards … open up the board you want to edit, you should see the pins in your board as well as a white rectangle with the name of your board towards the upper left hand corner indicating the number of pins and followers with a gear icon on the right hand side … click on the gear and a window will open up called Edit Board … click on the title and from there you will be able to change the title. Hope my instructions were clear enough and if not, let me know. I have to thank you for this question because my instructions are just for the computer. I am going to write a blog with photos for how to change your board names in the very near future because I am thinking if you have the question, many others probably do too. You were just the first one to ask. A huge thank you! Take Care, Thea
Thank you for writing about Pinterest. I also love it.
I want to organize everything with sub-boards, however, I can’t figure out how to do a sub board within a board.
Can you please tell me how you do that?
Thanks,
Rachel
Hi Rachel, Thanks so much for reading my post about the system I developed to organize my boards. I created this system so that I could easily find my pins and because Pinterest does not have a sub-board system built in (that I know of). I am sorry if my post confused you but if you go to the bullets in the section titled you will read exactly how I organize my boards with a main board for a category and different ones in the same category but are more detailed. For example, I have a board that is named ‘My Organizing’ and that is where I pin anything to do with organizing that does not fit in any of the organizing boards that I have. I have other organizing boards that begin with the name ‘My Organizing’ but then there is a subtitle that I created that goes after it identifying exactly the more specific topic. For example, My Organizing: Bedrooms, My Organizing: Bathrooms, My Organizing: Garage and so on. Hope that makes sense and if not you might want to see my boards on Pinterest to see exactly what I am talking about. Thanks again and maybe see you on PInterest! ~Thea
Thank you so much for this entry! I love many of the improvements Pinterest has made, but tonight I was REALLY wishing for subcategories, so I Googled and found this blog entry. Funny thing is…I used to manage a website and your method of categorizing your boards is not unlike the old, redundant labeling method we used to create website categories “back in the day”. I had the answer all along, but needed you to show me. Kind of like in the Wizard of Oz. LOL!
It’s going to take some time, but I’m already busy reorganizing my pins. I had to take a break and thank you for showing me the way.
Happy holidays!
Hi Kim,
Thank you for your very kind words and I am thrilled you totally get my organizing system. I so agree with you in regards to having to create website categories, as it is basically the same system. I am not sure how other pinners locate their pins? I have to admit I quite enjoy revisiting my pins whenever I ‘clean up’ my boards so hopefully you will have the same feeling when you are done reorganizing. I found you on PInterest and I LOVE your boards and how you organized them! You have a new follower! Take Care, Thea
Hi…thanks for the sub category idea! I was looking for a way to do that. What works best for me though, is to not include the word “My.” That way your major categories are easier to find because they are in alphabetical order and not all under “M”. Just a thought.
I am so glad the post helped you. I think your simpler naming system is excellent. It does easily put the boards in alphabetical order and makes it easier to find them. Thank you so much for sharing! ~Thea
This is still a great tip. Thank you! I really try to make sure that pins are from original sources I really like knowing if someone is pinning things from their own blog with a clearly marked board.
Thanks! I am glad the tip helped. I know everyone has their own system for organizing their boards. It can get very confusing otherwise. I just wrote a post last week titled ‘Reasons Why I Always Check My Pins Before Pinning’ where I talk about how it is so important to make sure you are pinning from the original source. That being said, I am slowly going through my pins because I know I pinned things that were not from the original source before I knew better.
Hi. I’m hoping you can answer a question for me. Is there a way to drag and drop pins within a board to put them in particular order? I really don’t want to (read am too lazy to [g]) repin and delete each pin. I just want to re-order them. Help?
Hi M.M. Justus. I have been asked this question before and at this time there is no way to move your pins around within a board. Pinterest has said they are working on it but to my knowledge they have not made the update you are looking for yet. I don’t know if this is helpful but I have made several boards and I don’t load them up with too many pins so I can easily find what I am looking for. The other thing you can do is search for the pin(s) you are looking for by using the search feature on the upper left hand side. It would be so nice to be able to order pins within a board too. I am sure that feature will come.
Hi, Thea,
First of all I have to say that your headshot is certainly a beautiful picture of a beautiful woman!
Now, maybe you can help with this Pinterest problem–changing a board cover. All the instructions I’ve found start with “hover over the board and you’ll get a ‘change cover’ popup…” I’ve hovered over every board and have yet to EVER see a ‘change cover’ popup. Any suggestions?
Hi Ed, This is perplexing because the “Change Cover” pop-up does show up when you hover over the selected board. Are you on the page in Pinterest that shows all of your boards? Once that “Change Cover” comes up all you do is click on that and it takes you to a different window. There will be an arrow to the right. Click on the arrow until you see the image that you want to save and that becomes your new board cover. This might be a question for Pinterest. Perhaps there is a technical issue with your Pinterest account that they will have to resolve. Thank you also for your kind words about my headshot. Take Care, Thea
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Thea,
I kept Googling and finally noticed a comment somewhere that the problem is browser related–it occurs on Chrome and Firefox, but everything works as it should on IExplore. I switched to IExplore and it worked just as you had described. Thanks for your quick reply. I’m now one of your followers!
Thank you! Interestingly, Google Chrome is my main browser but with no issues. The lesson here is to problem solve and research all possibilities. Glad it worked out for you!
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