Greetings, all.
One of the most important questions to ask when organizing your data is: why am I keeping this stuff?
This applies just as much to physical stuff in the real world, but it's equally as important in the digital realm. It's just easier to ignore because the perceived cost of keeping digital things is usually very low. But if you keep things without purpose--digital or physical--that means you're doing extra work now and delegating still more work to either your future self (or whoever ends up in charge of your stuff after you're no longer there to manage it).
I've been thinking about question a lot with my mom's document migration project over the last couple of weeks. It's part of what I'd like the Tidy Organizer AI-assisted classification tool to be able to answer (remember that from last week?).
Figuring out why you're keeping some file, document, note, e-book, picture, or whatever can pose a real challenge. Some answers come easily, while others are hard to pin down even if you're being perfectly honest with yourself.
Now, being unable to articulate a solid reason to keep something does not mean you should automatically get rid of it. But it does mean you should practice asking and answering that question more, and spend time paying real attention to your workflow and data collection habits. As I've mentioned multiple times in earlier newsletters and blog posts, you should always have a purpose in mind for anything you keep. It doesn't have to be an impressive or altruistic or productive reason; it just has to be something you actually considered before blindly clicking that "Save" button.
So how do you answer that question? Or, if you're in my situation (or my mom's), how do you retroactively answer that question about a huge collection of documents and other files?
Stale Files
Without additional context, one of the easiest indicators of value is how long it's been since you last touched a file (either saved it or opened it). In other words, how stale is it? If you saved something five years ago but haven't opened it since then, how important could it possibly be?
Some categories of data are excluded from this simple time-based filter; anything you save simply for record-keeping or memory's sake (personal photos, journals, etc.) has an infinite useful timeframe. The whole point is to come back and look at it someday, when and if you feel like it. That's fine. Those things need other filters, like "is this photo actually worth keeping?" or "did I really need to journal about what I had for lunch last month?"
For most other kinds of data, you should ask: what am I planning to do with this, and when?
Anything you keep should have at least a tentative "next step" plan, even if only in your mind:
- I'll read this article on time blocking in the next week to get ideas to incorporate into my daily routine.
- I'll review these meeting notes before Friday so I'll have a plan for how to start the new project on Monday.
- I'll refer to this recipe for the dinner party I'm going to host next month.
- I'll read the chapter about composting in this ebook early next Spring.
Of course, noting these time-based goals in some kind of planner or task management system is really helpful, but that's another discussion.
A company I used to work for about a decade ago had a hard-line solution to the problem of determining what to keep. They had a custom-built documentation management system that kept track of an enormous quantity of technical documents, manuals, and even simple internal memos. Many employees didn't like the amount of work it took to use that system as intended, but the company required it anyway. Personally, I grew to appreciate it--big surprise, I know.
For every document except for internal memos, the system enforced a sunset date. Every year, somebody had to look over the document and decide whether to update it, keep it, or let it "sunset" (basically, die a peaceful death and go to bit heaven). Each decision had to be justified and signed off by somebody other than the person making the decision--usually the employee who wrote the original, or whoever had inherited it after that.
You were allowed to post a simple "Nothing has changed since this was last reviewed" update the first year, but after that, you needed significant justification to continue roll it forward to the following year without either changing it or letting it sunset.
This system, while annoying in some ways, really did an excellent job of avoiding "digital dust" even across a company of thousands of employees. And let me tell you, they had a ton of documentation to maintain. So, it was a good choice.
(I wonder what they do today? That system felt ancient even when I was using it 10 years ago, so they might have updated, modernized, or even scrapped it by now. But maybe some of my contributions are still around!)
Now, I don't expect you to adopt the same kind of strict system (nor have I myself). Personal document management allows a bit more flexibility. But you might consider the principles that drove them to build and use such an organizational process: it works, and it works well, even for a huge company with lots of people.
Related Projects
Another good rule of thumb for deciding whether to keep something is concerns related projects. If you saved something because it was relevant to something you were working on, but now you're not working on that thing anymore, can you get rid of it? If you encountered it today, would you save it again?
This is hard to answer honestly sometimes, especially if we never finished (or maybe even started) the project the information relates to. It's painful to admit that we went to the trouble of finding, curating, and saving something only to end up not using it because life got in the way somehow or other. But the alternative here is a never-ending pile of psychological weight.
In the end, only you can make that call. But I can tell you: even though it's hard, it's freeing. Truly.
Personal Interests
One more consideration for the "why am I keeping this?" question is your own interests. Sometimes, we save stuff simply because we like the topic and feel that we might enjoy doing something with it in the future. It's like a softer version of the "Related Projects" idea above...we just haven't quite come up with an actual project for it yet.
But even if we allow ourselves to keep something with such a foggy outlook on its usefulness, our interests can still change over time. Maybe a subject I was really into a couple of years ago has fallen by the wayside. As before, honestly consider whether you would go to the trouble of saving something again if you encountered it today.
Do you have a process, a set of guidelines, or a "gut feeling" for how you choose what digital stuff to keep? Or does it just happen based on the circumstances of the moment? Have you tried any of the above approaches--or something like them--and found either success or headaches? I'd love to know.
I'll be referring to these guidelines with my mom and her document collection frequently over the next many weeks. I'll be sure to pass along how they work out in this situation.
Until next week, happy data-taming!