Greetings, data-tamers.
last week's post about the ideal photo management workflow was technically heavy and pretty long, so this week I'm going to dial things back a little and cover a more high-level topic: managing the flow of information into your life.
First, though, a recap of how Q2's first week went for my 2025 Consistency Challenge project (organizing my giant file archive).
- I deleted 2,408 files comprising ~73 GB
- I sorted 43,632 files comprising ~29 GB
To simplify the process of keeping track, I threw together a simple spreadsheet where I can easily fill in the current date and latest numbers. It looks something like this (visually split up on multiple rows to make it easier to read on small screens):
It's a straightforward (if engineer-ish) way to record how much data I have and what portion got either deleted or sorted that week.
There's kind of a lot there, but trust me when I say the math works out. All I need to do it copy over two sets of numbers directly from what WizTree or the built-in File Explorer provide. With only the starting point (3/31) and results of the first week (4/7), there's no point in trying to visualize it on a graph. But by the end of the quarter, I should be able to paint a nice picture of how the entire 13-week process turned out on a line chart or X-Y plot. And when I do, you bet I'll share it with you all here.
Mastering Information Flow
Imagine for a moment that information is like water. There's lot of it in the world, and it moves around in all sorts of ways, to and from many places, for many purposes.
A great deal of it would actually harm us if we consumed it. The obviously nasty stuff is fortunately easy enough to avoid--we don't go around drinking ocean water or a random murky stream coming out of a drain pipe, for example. But other sources can be just as harmful in the long term, especially when mixed with dopamine-triggering compounds and laced with ingredients that are designed to be addicting.
Then there's the matter of quantity. How much do you need? What are the consequences of consuming more than that amount? What if you try to store what you don't need right now so you can use it later?
And what about method? Can you get everything you need by standing outside in the rain and letting it cascade over you? What about drinking from a firehose? Or what if your preferred method includes 182 cups sitting on your counter, each with one or two sips? (I'm looking at you, browser tabs!)
I admit, eventually, the analogy starts to break down. But it's still an interesting concept, and it seemed relevant for this topic, so by golly I'm gonna use it in this post.
Because information is not physical, we don't think of "consuming" it the way we drink water or eat food. But information is mental nourishment--without it, we are ignorant. With an unhealthy diet, we come to bad conclusions, make poor decisions, and dwell on unhelpful or even harmful topics regularly. And even if we regularly look for good information, it's easy to misjudge when and how to use it most effectively. You can have too much of a good thing; even water will kill you in large enough quantities.
With this in mind, managing the flow of information in our lives becomes a key task for encouraging a productive and healthy mental state and--for all my Tidy Bytes readers--avoiding information overload and an unwieldy mess of disorganized data.
Now, I'm not about to tell you what you should or shouldn't be reading, watching, or listening to. I'm not going to claim you should avoid "unproductive" information, or that there's a "perfect" amount of information you should allow into your life for optimal balance.
My point is that what information you pursue, what you allow in, how much you consume, why you do so, what you plan to (and actually) do with that information--all of these things matter, and you should think about them consciously rather than passively letting circumstances have control.
Most of us could rattle off topics we personally find interesting or enjoyable. Reading, listening, and watching for enjoyment is perfectly fine. But we have to watch out when we start gathering information with the intent (or optimistic hope) to do something else with it later.
Don't get me wrong--I love a good Read-Later app. Readwise Reader is my personal favorite, though many other good options exist. Being able to set aside content to consume later is a critical part of managing information flow, giving yourself the freedom not to act on something right away. However, it's easy to let such a tool become a bottomless pit and a source of stress any time you think about just how many hundreds or thousands of articles, podcasts, and videos you've saved.
There are three primary guidelines I recommend anytime you're considering whether to keep any piece of information:
- Have a specific place to store and retrieve that information
- Have a specific purposefor what you'll do with that information
- Have a specific plan for what you'll do if you don't follow through on that purpose
The first point helps avoid a mess of bookmarks, browser tabs, or other non-ideal temporary storage methods. The second point makes you think about whether it's worth spending time and effort on, and especially how it will add value when you follow up. The third point provides a sort of "relief valve" for when your eyes are bigger than your proverbial (digital) stomach. It avoids an overflowing reservoir of information that we'll never be able to consume or benefit from.
That interesting and timely news article you wanted to read? It's two months old now. Just delete it.
That hour-long interview by your favorite news anchor? An hour is a long time, and yeah, that's also more than a month old now. Let it go.
We all take in too much sometimes, especially when the information is interesting, relevant, arguably valuable, and keeping it has no perceivable cost and takes only a moment. But part of managing information flow means letting some of it flow out of our lives, often without being used. That's okay, and it's even healthy.
One other note about having a specific place to store and retrieve that information: I've written about this before, such as in the One App, One Purpose week during Tidy '24. There's no single "right" tool for this; you might use something like Readwise, or a note-taking app, or your browser bookmarks, or some combination (although simplifying to a single method helps). However, there are definitely less optimal methods, such as browser tabs or your email inbox. You can use perpetually open browser tabs as a "read/listen/watch later" mechanism, but unless your brain works in a unique way, you're probably making your life hard by doing so.
Look for tools that are made to streamline the work (or fun!) you want to do, then practice using those tools as designed to accomplish your goals. It might not be easy and intuitive at first, but the payoff is great.
One final touch on the water analogy: do you want your information flow to behave like ships through the Panama Canal?
...or more like logs down a river, sometimes so clogged that they have to be cleared with dynamite?
If you have any questions about managing information flow, reply and let me know! I'm always glad to answer questions, especially to help solve specific problems.
As always, have a great week, and happy data-taming!