We're in the second week of Big Picture Month, continuing to investigate why we want to better manage our digital data and technology. Figuring out why we want to pursue various kinds of digital organization helps us focus our efforts and make educated choices about whether a goal is worth pursuing.
Big Picture Week 2: Root Cause
Last week, we covered the idea of "pain points" that appear while creating, collecting, or otherwise using your data. I invited you to consider what bothers you in your day-to-day tech usage.
Here are the top five responses I've received so far based on the number of people who reported them:
- My email is overwhelming
- My photo collection is unorganized and impossible to manage
- I'm worried about losing important files, photos, or documents
- I'd like to have a plan for what happens with my data in an emergency
- I have too many apps on my phone
As expected, most people who find Tidy Bytes do so because of email, photos, or a general "I have too much digital stuff" feeling. Even so, I like these answers because they're instantly relatable and provide a great starting point for digging deeper to find what needs to be addressed.
On the other hand, another reader gave this wonderfully pointed (and heartwarming) response:
"I want all my photos perfectly organized and available all the time so they aren't just sitting around but are bringing to my mind treasured memories."
This person figured out the pain point:
😖 My photos are unorganized and hard to navigate. 😖
...and focused directly on the desired outcome:
😍 I want to be able to relive all the precious moments I spent decades capturing. 😍
Starting from your pain points quickly narrows things down, but it doesn't automatically reveal the root cause or desired outcome.
Suppose you go to a doctor and say, "My shoulder hurts every time I raise my arm," then the doctor says, "Well, stop doing it." That wouldn't help. What if raising your arm is critical for doing your job or playing with your kids? Instead, a doctor should take time to determine the nature of the pain, when it started, what you were doing, what you want to be able to do instead, and what's really causing the pain in the first place. Maybe it's because a rogue skateboarder crashed into you last week. It could be the result of loading heavy boxes onto a truck twice a week for ten years. The recommended treatment depends greatly on the root cause.
Similarly, once you've identified your digital pain points, you can determine what the pain means and what a "better" outcome would look like. It's not always your first instinct.
"My email is overwhelming" might mean you have thousands of messages in your inbox. Or, it might mean that you have a perfectly clean inbox, but only because you spend two hours cleaning it every day.
"My photo collection is unorganized and impossible to manage" might mean that you have decades of photos dumped willy-nilly into Google Photos, and it seems like you might never have time even to begin culling and creating albums. Or, it might mean that you don't know where your photos are or how many ancient digital camera memory cards, old phones, and laptops everything is spread across.
The point is to think about why something bothers you. What is it preventing you from doing? How is it making your life worse?
For example, I know people who live happy lives with over 50K emails in their inboxes. It doesn't cause a problem with their workflow; they don't care about that big, scary number. Others have no idea where all their old college classwork files are, or even if they still have them anywhere, and this lack of knowledge and control has no impact. Their lives are not made worse by it, either practically or psychologically.
On the other hand, I recently spoke with someone trying to figure out how to solve the problem of collecting notes from widely varying sources. She'd built a collection of Word documents stored in a hierarchy of folders on her computer, which grew naturally from her approach to file organization and her solid familiarity with Microsoft Word. Yet, despite the potential success such a system might offer for someone with her skills and temperament, it grew into something challenging to manage. Her interests shifted over the years, and the folder hierarchy became unwieldy and difficult to maintain. Documents no longer had obvious locations. Finding things became difficult, and taking notes felt like dumping information into a black hole. Much of her data became virtually invisible, present somewhere but out of practical reach and unable to add value to her life.
A situation like that has many possible solutions depending on the root cause. For example:
- Is there too much data coming in to start with?
- Is the information ever used again after being captured?
- Are important notes too hard to find?
- Should all the documents should be reorganized into a more straightforward structure?
- Did the notes become irrelevant as personal interests moved on?
These are the questions whose answers can point you toward real solutions.
Now, I realize that not everything you do with your technology needs a practical, objectively valuable outcome. We all do some things for fun or simply for their own sake because we enjoy them. Taking notes, for example, improves comprehension of the subject matter even if you never return to those notes.
But you, dear reader, are probably not feeling psychologically burdened by disorderly data generated by things you choose to do for fun or for their own sake. (If you are, reconsider whether it's worth worrying about.)
This week, especially if you've had a chance to identify some of your digital pain points, take some time to consider why those things make you feel the way they do. Ask questions of yourself that help you drill down towards the root cause.
If you aren't sure how to approach a specific problem or general area, let me know. I'll be happy to explore it with you.
Happy data-taming, and have a great week!