A 3-Step Cure for Digital Packrats, and How to Know If You’re One of Them

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

I have a confession to make: until recently, I was a digital packrat.

While my outer life has become fairly simple, as I declutter my home and workspace, and my paper files have also become pretty simple, my digital life was a mess.

I had all kinds of files on my hard drive, just because I thought I might need them. I had all kinds of files in my email, because Gmail storage is so cheap (free) that I felt I didn’t need to delete anything. Photos, mp3s, video files, pdfs, word processing documents, spreadsheets, you name it, and I had a bunch of them somewhere.

Trouble is, there are costs to such packrattery. It can slow down your computer, it can complicate your life, it can cost you time in terms of productivity, and it can stress you out more than you know.

How do I know? Because I recently decluttered my digital life to a great extreme, and the relief and speed increases I’ve found since then have been enormous.

How to Know If You’re a Digital Packrat
The main way to know: 1) you feel that you should keep a lot of files “just in case”; 2) it takes you too long to find stuff; 3) your digital life is becoming complicated, with multiple email accounts, drives, storage mediums and either a mess of files or a mess of folders.

But here are a few symptoms:

Do you have 20 or more folders and sub-folders in your documents folder on your hard drive?
Is your list of Internet bookmarks long and overwhelming?
Is your email program nearly full, or do you use more than one email account because of all the storage you need?
Do you have multiple duplicates of photos, and is it hard to find a photo you need?
Is your hard drive 75% full or more?
Do you have multiple accounts for similar things, making it hard to find stuff?
Are any of your digital file systems overwhelming?
Do you have email from 5 years ago?
Do you have project files from 2 years ago?
Do you have folders of stuff to read that would take a year to actually read?

If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, more than likely, you’re a digital packrat. Welcome to the club!

Now, if being a digital packrat is OK with you, I am not disparaging you. But if you’d like to declutter your digital life and learn the simpler ways of a Zen Habits digital existence, see the next section for a cure and some practical tips based on my experience.

How to Cure Digital Packrattery, With Practical Tips
If you’re a digital packrat like I am, and want to be cured, there is a simple cure that I’ve gone through and recommend to everyone:

Go through a massive purge. In the beginning, you’ll need to devote some time to purging files. Thirty minutes a day is a good time — put it in your calendar, and just spend 30 minutes purging everything you can. See the tips below for more details. When you’re done with your massive purge, it feels amazing! It’s worth the time you spend doing it.
Aim for a simple digital life. Once you’re purged of all the clutter and junk, see if you can keep things simple. When you are tempted to file something, see if you can delete it instead. When it comes time to create another account for more storage, see if you can reduce your storage needs instead. At all turns, aim to simplify instead of complicate. This is more of a change in mindset than anything else.
Develop purging routines. It’s important to do some regular house cleaning of your digital files. Just as you have to clean your house regularly, or it will become junk-ridden and cobweb-filled, you have to clean your digital house as well. Once a week or once a month, depending on the amount of stuff you amass, should be a good interval for purging. If you want to be really organized, develop a checklist of things to purge during these regular intervals.

This “cure” actually sounds simpler than it is in practice, as digital packrats face overwhelming tasks if they want to purge their files

Target one folder at a time. If you can set aside some time each day for purging, then each day you should target a large folder. Start with the biggest ones and then work your way down. When I say “folders”, I mean anything that contains digital files or info. Email accounts, Flickr accounts, hard drives, USB flash drives, Internet bookmarks, My Documents sub-folders, etc.
Choose only the important stuff, and trash the rest. Go through all the stuff in the folder you’re targeting (see Tip 1 above) and pick out only the most important stuff, only the super essential files. Put them in a separate, temporary folder. Once you’ve picked out the essential stuff, delete the rest. Put the essential stuff back where it belongs and delete the temporary folder. What this leaves you with is a lot less stuff in each folder — just the stuff you need. Sometimes, you can delete an entire folder — if you can, then do so.
Simplify before organizing. Many people try to create complicated organizing systems for all of their stuff, in an attempt to get organized. But it’s much better to reduce your stuff, and to get it as simple as possible, before organizing it all. If you simplify enough, you might not even need to organize at all!
Get organized: one place for everything. Once you’ve simplified, I suggest organizing so that everything you need is kept together, either in one place or as few places as possible. For example, you could organize all the information in your life in a personal wiki, creating different pages in the wiki for different types of info. Having one place for everything reduces the need to look for stuff. See also Monkeyboy’s 5 Ways to Manage Digital Packrattery.
Reduce accounts. Same concept, but in this tip you should list out your different accounts for holding files and digital information, and try to analyze which ones are necessary and which ones can be eliminated. The fewer, the better.
Simplify your feeds. If you’ve got 100 RSS feeds or more, chances are you’re being a packrat with them. Drop as many as possible, so the incoming information is reduced to a manageable amount. I’ve written about how to do that here, but since I wrote that article I’ve reduced my feeds down to 10.
Clear out your inbox. Having an overloaded inbox is overwhelming. Use this method to reduce your inboxes and this one to clear them out.
Clear out old emails. After you clear out your inbox, it is useful to clear out old messages. In Gmail, for example, you could create a filter that searched for all your email messages older than 6 months. Scan through this new folder, and delete all of the messages if possible. You could then do a second filter to find all types of media files (.jpg, .gif, .pdf, .mov, .mp3, .mpg, etc.) and then delete as many of these as possible. Using these steps, my Gmail account went from 25% full to the current 5%.
Clear your desktop. I don’t have any icons on my computer’s desktop. It used to be littered with documents I was working on, shortcuts to applications I used, and just a whole bunch of junk. I deleted or sorted through all of those, and now my desktop is nice a clear. Simple, calming, and it makes your computer run faster. Instead, use a simple filing system where you have a folder for downloads, another for things you’re currently working on, another for read/review, and another for archives. For shortcuts to applications, use a program like AutoHotKey to make keyboard shortcuts to all the applications you use — much faster than shortcuts on the desktop.
Delete multiple photos. It’s useful for both amateur photographers and pros to cull through their photos, not only to simplify but to force you to analyze your photos and just choose the best.
Stop saving junk. Once you’ve cleared out your old files and emails and accounts and your desktop, the key is to keep them clear. Every time you’re about to save something, ask yourself if this is really valuable info, or if it’s basically junk. Toss the junk.
Defrag your hard drive. Once you’ve gone through all your old files on your hard drive, it’s good to run a defrag utility so that your drive is organized efficiently and runs faster. See the Slacker Manager’s article for more.
Put purging reminders in your calendar. To make purging a routine, set reminders in your calendar program. Every week or two, or every month, are good intervals, depending on your needs. But make it a regular thing, and you’ll be living the simple digital life from now on.

If you liked this article, please bookmark it in del.icio.us. Thanks!

See also:

A 3-Step Cure for Digital Packrats, and How to Know If You’re One of Them

Every Monday is Productivity & Organization Day at Zen Habits.

I have a confession to make: until recently, I was a digital packrat.

While my outer life has become fairly simple, as I declutter my home and workspace, and my paper files have also become pretty simple, my digital life was a mess.

How do I know? Because I recently decluttered my digital life to a great extreme, and the relief and speed increases I’ve found since then have been enormous.

But here are a few symptoms:

Do you have 20 or more folders and sub-folders in your documents folder on your hard drive?
Is your list of Internet bookmarks long and overwhelming?
Is your email program nearly full, or do you use more than one email account because of all the storage you need?
Do you have multiple duplicates of photos, and is it hard to find a photo you need?
Is your hard drive 75% full or more?
Do you have multiple accounts for similar things, making it hard to find stuff?
Are any of your digital file systems overwhelming?
Do you have email from 5 years ago?
Do you have project files from 2 years ago?
Do you have folders of stuff to read that would take a year to actually read?

If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, more than likely, you’re a digital packrat. Welcome to the club!

How to Cure Digital Packrattery, With Practical Tips
If you’re a digital packrat like I am, and want to be cured, there is a simple cure that I’ve gone through and recommend to everyone:

Go through a massive purge. In the beginning, you’ll need to devote some time to purging files. Thirty minutes a day is a good time — put it in your calendar, and just spend 30 minutes purging everything you can. See the tips below for more details. When you’re done with your massive purge, it feels amazing! It’s worth the time you spend doing it.
Aim for a simple digital life. Once you’re purged of all the clutter and junk, see if you can keep things simple. When you are tempted to file something, see if you can delete it instead. When it comes time to create another account for more storage, see if you can reduce your storage needs instead. At all turns, aim to simplify instead of complicate. This is more of a change in mindset than anything else.
Develop purging routines. It’s important to do some regular house cleaning of your digital files. Just as you have to clean your house regularly, or it will become junk-ridden and cobweb-filled, you have to clean your digital house as well. Once a week or once a month, depending on the amount of stuff you amass, should be a good interval for purging. If you want to be really organized, develop a checklist of things to purge during these regular intervals.

This “cure” actually sounds simpler than it is in practice, as digital packrats face overwhelming tasks if they want to purge their files

Target one folder at a time. If you can set aside some time each day for purging, then each day you should target a large folder. Start with the biggest ones and then work your way down. When I say “folders”, I mean anything that contains digital files or info. Email accounts, Flickr accounts, hard drives, USB flash drives, Internet bookmarks, My Documents sub-folders, etc.
Choose only the important stuff, and trash the rest. Go through all the stuff in the folder you’re targeting (see Tip 1 above) and pick out only the most important stuff, only the super essential files. Put them in a separate, temporary folder. Once you’ve picked out the essential stuff, delete the rest. Put the essential stuff back where it belongs and delete the temporary folder. What this leaves you with is a lot less stuff in each folder — just the stuff you need. Sometimes, you can delete an entire folder — if you can, then do so.
Simplify before organizing. Many people try to create complicated organizing systems for all of their stuff, in an attempt to get organized. But it’s much better to reduce your stuff, and to get it as simple as possible, before organizing it all. If you simplify enough, you might not even need to organize at all!
Get organized: one place for everything. Once you’ve simplified, I suggest organizing so that everything you need is kept together, either in one place or as few places as possible. For example, you could organize all the information in your life in a personal wiki, creating different pages in the wiki for different types of info. Having one place for everything reduces the need to look for stuff. See also Monkeyboy’s 5 Ways to Manage Digital Packrattery.
Reduce accounts. Same concept, but in this tip you should list out your different accounts for holding files and digital information, and try to analyze which ones are necessary and which ones can be eliminated. The fewer, the better.
Simplify your feeds. If you’ve got 100 RSS feeds or more, chances are you’re being a packrat with them. Drop as many as possible, so the incoming information is reduced to a manageable amount. I’ve written about how to do that here, but since I wrote that article I’ve reduced my feeds down to 10.
Clear out your inbox. Having an overloaded inbox is overwhelming. Use this method to reduce your inboxes and this one to clear them out.
Clear out old emails. After you clear out your inbox, it is useful to clear out old messages. In Gmail, for example, you could create a filter that searched for all your email messages older than 6 months. Scan through this new folder, and delete all of the messages if possible. You could then do a second filter to find all types of media files (.jpg, .gif, .pdf, .mov, .mp3, .mpg, etc.) and then delete as many of these as possible. Using these steps, my Gmail account went from 25% full to the current 5%.
Clear your desktop. I don’t have any icons on my computer’s desktop. It used to be littered with documents I was working on, shortcuts to applications I used, and just a whole bunch of junk. I deleted or sorted through all of those, and now my desktop is nice a clear. Simple, calming, and it makes your computer run faster. Instead, use a simple filing system where you have a folder for downloads, another for things you’re currently working on, another for read/review, and another for archives. For shortcuts to applications, use a program like AutoHotKey to make keyboard shortcuts to all the applications you use — much faster than shortcuts on the desktop.
Delete multiple photos. It’s useful for both amateur photographers and pros to cull through their photos, not only to simplify but to force you to analyze your photos and just choose the best.
Stop saving junk. Once you’ve cleared out your old files and emails and accounts and your desktop, the key is to keep them clear. Every time you’re about to save something, ask yourself if this is really valuable info, or if it’s basically junk. Toss the junk.
Defrag your hard drive. Once you’ve gone through all your old files on your hard drive, it’s good to run a defrag utility so that your drive is organized efficiently and runs faster. See the Slacker Manager’s article for more.
Put purging reminders in your calendar. To make purging a routine, set reminders in your calendar program. Every week or two, or every month, are good intervals, depending on your needs. But make it a regular thing, and you’ll be living the simple digital life from now on.

If you liked this article, please bookmark it in del.icio.us. Thanks!

See also:

Posted on 6 August 2007 in Productivity & Organization, Simplicity |
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Comments (44)

Mark Mathson Says:

August 6th, 2007, 10:12 am

There are some good points and ideas here. Another idea for those old files or old emails from say, 2-3 years ago, would be to simply compress the folders/files into zip or suitable format and either burn to CD or move to external hard drive or some online storage site such as Mozy.com or Box.net.

There may be things you need to look at a few years from now and storage is so cheap why not utilize it?

Rolf F. Katzenberger Says:

August 6th, 2007, 10:17 am

Leo,

As always: excellent, compact advice!

In refinement of #4 (Get organized: one place for everything), I’ve been using a two-folder structure for documents that served me well for years now: 1) documents.uptodate and 2) documents.unique.

Into 1), I place all documents that I keep up to date, e.g.: my CV, profile, financial stats, gasoline stats, my weight stats, etc.

Into 2), I place one folder per year (2007, 2006, …) and dump all docs into it that I write and use once, like letters, bills, etc. That way, the folders “auto-expire” and I can safely delete them after some years (as mandated by tax and accounting laws, e.g.).

Thanks again for providing another very resourceful posting!
Rolf

Christopher Humphries Says:

August 6th, 2007, 10:59 am

One cool thing I’ve found out (just today and released just today) is a program where you can stick little things like bookmarks and images to review later.

http://www.wonderwarp.com/shovebox/

It allows me now to sort through things like an GTD “inbox”. In a world with information overload, it’s nice to prioritize non-critical information away, that’s interesting to look at later.

disclaimer: no, i’m not a developer of shovebox or anything, still running the demo. sorry if it sounds like spam, yet it is helping me so far :)

MDB Says:

August 6th, 2007, 11:29 am

The best thing I found for myself was to get a new computer!! It’s amazing how little I found I had to transfer over from the old one. However, I have to keep my eye on the ball that it doesn’t fill up with junk again, so your ideas are great on that front. Nice post!

Mifeng Says:

August 6th, 2007, 11:37 am

i just realized i have used up 63G out of my 80G hard drive. i think i should clear some stuffs now ~ lol

Leonardo Cassarani Says:

August 6th, 2007, 11:47 am

Speaking of organizing your desktop, I think that every Mac OS X user should feel compelled to read the amazing “Five Steps to a Kinkless Desktop” guide – it changed my life!

Check it out http://kinkless.com/article/kinkless_desktop

The Buxr Widget Says:

August 6th, 2007, 11:53 am

Great tips. I’m a digital pack rat that just ends up buying more space and a faster PC :)

ddbordeaux Says:

August 6th, 2007, 11:58 am

Leo, how do you create your own personal wiki?

Thanks for all your great work!

Erik Says:

August 6th, 2007, 13:32 pm

A good article, but it doesn’t necessarily cure it. It deals with the symptoms of the problem but doesn’t really get to the root, does it?

Modern Worker Says:

August 6th, 2007, 14:53 pm

Simplicity does so much for one’s mental health in addition to the financial benefits as well!

Edward Mills Says:

August 6th, 2007, 16:00 pm

Oh man do I need to do this! I was a “yes” on at least five of the symptoms. So if you’re beyond all hope is it cheating to go out and get a new computer and start from scratch! (I’m only half joking here!)

Ryan Allen Says:

August 6th, 2007, 19:32 pm

I never delete files no matter how useless they are - I feel like I may need them at some point - I find that it is rarely the case but with inexpensive DVDs I just burn all my mess and give them an incremental number and a date… Then file them away never to be seen again.

This allows me to stay clean and clear but not worry about sorting or thinking about what I should purge and what I shouldn’t :)

Sara Says:

August 6th, 2007, 20:24 pm

I confess, I’m a digipackrat! Loved this post, Leo. I took your advice last month to clean out my gmail. The latest decluttering project has been to force myself to clean out my bookmarks weekly. If they’re good I Stumble ‘em, if not, deleted! Nice tips, thanks again. :)

Daniel Says:

August 7th, 2007, 0:07 am

I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding o.us poetry, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong :)

Jonas Says:

August 7th, 2007, 0:35 am

I’ve got over 3TB of hard disk space. What can I do to clean up my drives. It seems like there are millions of files everywhere :(

Greg Says:

August 7th, 2007, 1:05 am

Agree with a lot of this, but I personally create folders that are for old things - with the cost of storage so low (500GB/$150), I rarely find I delete things like photos - old ones just get moved to archive.

Morace Says:

August 7th, 2007, 1:38 am

Just defragged my hd today, it was rather quick actually.

pffft Says:

August 7th, 2007, 2:19 am

I run linux. I don’t have to defrag!!

Auto Parts for Brains Says:

August 7th, 2007, 3:31 am

I am a packrat. Thanks for this post. I think I am still at the process of decluttering my HD. My solution? I did a partition of my HD so I can just put all things I can purge on the other partition. I saved all my “just in case” files on DVD’s which I can always access if the need arises.

I have X5 and Windows desktop search for going thru some of the files I have not yet had time to organize.

I, rely on scheduled clean ups of many of my folders. Making my PC delete files, I know I will have a hard time parting with on my own.

Tom Says:

August 7th, 2007, 4:17 am

“I deleted or sorted through all of those, and now my desktop is nice a clear. Simple, calming, and it makes your computer run faster.”

I refuse to take any kind of technical advice from someone who believes deleting shortcuts will make their computer run faster. Free Space Speed.

Tom Says:

August 7th, 2007, 4:18 am

And ignore the last sentence, it stripped out the less than, greater than characters..

Free Space DOES NOT equal Speed!

dajolt Says:

August 7th, 2007, 4:21 am

No imagine your house would triple in size every three years, would you still recommend wasting time of decluttering?

I’m all about decluttering, but I limit this to keeping my email inbox free and to remove icons from my desktop.

A backlog of searchable email for the last 10 years is not going to take up much space, but can be really useful - if only as a diary replacement. Same goes for photos. Look at any 10 year old picture taken and you’ll see something of interest. Instead of deleting files, I’d just make sure that they are properly named and indexed, so that I can have my computer search them for me instead of manual work.

BTW, two recommendations. There’s a freeware called WinDirStat, that will help you visualize the mess, your computer it. And there’s another freeware called Visual CD, which keeps indexes of external harddiscs and burnt media and will allow you to locate files with ease.

The True Digital Hoarder Says:

August 7th, 2007, 8:15 am

Of the above (including the article itself), Jonas and Ryan Allen are getting close to the meaning of the true digital hoarder, but I the rest of you are confusing this with simple disorganization. The True Digital Hoarder is swamped with millions of files, with more coming in by the thousands *every day*. The number of discreet pieces of information The True Digital Hoarder possesses is an amount, in the form of everything that is digitizable, that approaches the holdings of the library of Congress, and is certainly far more than any one human has ever possessed in the past (to be safe, I’d say before the 1980s). peace!

hellfinder Says:

August 7th, 2007, 11:45 am

My drive is so cluttered and bloated with junk, plus its as fragmented as hell, feels like its afflicted with some epidemic!

arnold Says:

August 7th, 2007, 13:45 pm

If only I could get my users to adopt this philosophy… Thanks for sharing!

Drop on by sometime!
http://streetjesus.blogspot.com

justDIY Says:

August 7th, 2007, 14:28 pm

yes to 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10!

My storage space is never more than 50% full, when it fills much past that, it’s time to upgrade! My “my documents” folder is nearly 20g, 2/3rds are pictures I’ve taken. The “my pictures” folder is a safety deposit box for all the pictures I take, they’re saved as originals, untouched. Photos I use in my publications get copied to various directories (duplicate #1) and then to my website (duplicate #2). My current capacity is roughly 500 GB on my main desktop and over 1 TB on a dedicated home server.

I keep every email sent and received back to the mid nineties, broken down by year and easy to search.

I do lots of engineering stuff, so I have a massive library of datasheets, application notes and white papers on stuff, plus tons of cad files.

My bookmark list is around 3meg, and is stored online using sitebar - yes it’s large, but not overwhelming, lots of sub folders and organization.

Yes, I am a packrat, and I admit that - however, I disagree that saving everything = unorganized. My physical world is a bit different. I don’t have trouble throwing stuff away, but have a heck of a time keeping the junk I do have organized.

dominofrog Says:

August 7th, 2007, 14:41 pm

Am I a packrat? Damn Straight. It’s more like maintaining your own library than worrying about what’s in your junk-closet. Purging happens regularly, but almost all ‘original’ content is kept indefinitely. Smarter filesystems will make metadata about the content more easily accessible, which is half the battle when trying to find or purge something.

With disks now passing

dominofrog Says:

August 7th, 2007, 14:46 pm

With disks now passing $0.20/GB it’s more than economical to archive than ever before.

I’m personally sitting on 10+TB of storage at home, organizing it isn’t a problem, trying to find tools that can index, de-dupe, and visualize it without blowing up is a much bigger challenge.

For example, I’ve spent a lot of time trying different solutions for ease of access to things like photos, I sort all my pics into ‘event’ folders, named by date and title and one of the few programs that can actually bring in this volume of images is Picasa, most other image tools tend to blow up (or gobble gigs of RAM) before they reach the tens to hundreds of thousands of pictures I have stored away.

My next problem is a physical/hardware one, for those of us that want to have 10+ disks attached to a system without dropping $$$$ on a commercial fibrechannel/RAID enclosure are high and dry. There is no pro-sumer storage boxes yet, but with the digital packrat problem only getting worse I’m sure the tech industry will serve this market eventually, just doesn’t help guys like me today. I’m tired of seeing 1-disk and 2-disk eSATA/USB enclosures, I want a 5, 6, or 8+ disk enclosure, with a single power, cooling, and bus interface aimed at the pro-sumer.

*last comment was cut off because of a stray bracket*

Ryan Austin Says:

August 7th, 2007, 18:12 pm

Great article! Echoing what dominofrog said … harddrives are so cheap now, that it makes sense to get large ones to use as archives, thats what I do as well.

I have two tips/programs that help:

1. http://desktop.google.com/ for searching through the massive harddrives :)

2. http://www.sevencube.com/5/marketing_resources.php#ql - after deleting the websites they added :) its great for organizing my frequented links

Leo Says:

August 7th, 2007, 23:44 pm

@Tom: I didn’t mean to imply that freed space equals more speed. The reason that deleting icons from your desktop makes your computer run faster isn’t because of the freed space, but because your OS doesn’t need to waste CPU cycles redrawing the icons all the time. It’s a documented fact that a lot of icons on your desktop slows your computer down.

@dajolt: Yes, I would recommend decluttering your house, even if it were to triple in space every three years. In fact, I would recommend against getting a house that tripled in size every three years, because then you just have too much space, and that takes too much maintenance. The problem is that we go for more stuff and more storage space, without realizing that it takes time to maintain all that stuff, and to organize it, and to look through it for what we really need. All the extra junk has a cost in terms of time and stress and productivity.

It’s not about storage space, it’s about what you really want to keep in your life.

That said, I take your point about keeping old emails. However, I personally found it liberating to delete all my old emails, and don’t miss them a bit. :)

Alex Corroborant Says:

August 8th, 2007, 14:06 pm

You may want to re-think some of this. See Scientific American March 2007 “A Digital Life” which points out that you can now digitally record every aspect of your life, and makes a good argument for doing so. With storage cheap, efficient desktop search and search functions in email and other programs - why delete? File and forget. I’ve found great value in things from 15 or more years ago that I once thought I would never need again. They can be lifesavers.

Jeff Underwood Says:

August 8th, 2007, 14:45 pm

In addition to digital packrattery, I suffer from digital device and accessory packrattery. I have an untold number of USB cables, camera connectors, SD cards, memory sticks, old laptop batteries, palm pilots etc. I really need to listen to my wife and cull my collection…but it’s so hard to throw out redundant cables (you never know when your current cable will go bad!) and other digital antiques.

Ilsot Says:

August 8th, 2007, 19:04 pm

@ Rolf K:

Genius. I’m using it. One folder per year, delete it when it gets to be seven…of course.

esvl Says:

August 14th, 2007, 14:40 pm

This is a brilliant article.

I never knew i was one.

blza Says:

September 5th, 2007, 16:20 pm

In addition to AutoHotkey, try Launchy (www.launchy.net) to keep your desktop clean. It’s almost perfect launcher for windows wiht some extra features.

And yes, when you delete old files, you save your time not only because you can navigate and search faster, but because with every peace of junk you have some memories assosiated. And almost every time you see it in your folders again and again you spend your time with restoring assosiations in your memory. So, GET RID OF JUNK - GET TIME FOR YOUR LIFE.

P.S.: thanks for your article.

danilla Says:

November 15th, 2007, 13:56 pm

There has been a couple of times in my life where many of my things materialistically have been destroyed either by rain, mildow, or fire. At first I couldn’t bare to sort through them in fear of seeing what I so treasured now permanently destroyed. What I later found out (except for picutures and minumal keepsakes) was that most of the items I didnt even need or remember having. When they were gone I didn’t miss them, in fact when going through the storage I was confused why I even kept over half of the items. People make a lot of money in the Storage businesses because so many people hold on to things they truly believe that one day they will need. The truth is we dont need them and our stress is high, and our pocket books are low. I never heard of the expression “Digital Packrat” until today. As silly as it may sound its soo true. I felt like a 12 steper reading the Yes/No questions. And omg I am. My inbox on my yahoo account is at 3,000 unread messages. They piled up with junk and etc for so long I couldnt keep up with it. I would like to just send them all to recycle/trash bin, however I can’t. I need to set a day aside…and truly clear them out. I think I would feel less stressed and releived. Thank you for reminding me that some of our character defects, of letting go, show up in other parts of our life similiarly.

A Key Says:

December 5th, 2007, 17:17 pm

I guess I’m not because I back everything up at least once a month, then delete to make space. If I have to go back, the stuff is there compressed on DVDs. It’s just a question of finding it.

Snigel Says:

January 4th, 2008, 19:37 pm

Destroying information? Heresy! I keep my digital life extremely well organised and back up everything regularly. I would never trash anything I have produced, since text takes so little space that one could spend an entire lifetime writing without worrying about hard drive space.

I see parallels between the virtual desktop and the physical one. Make sure you have your workspace tidy, but keep in mind that the way to do this is not to throw everything away, but not to put it there in the first place, but rather in/on the correct box/drawer/shelf/whatever.

kelly Says:

May 1st, 2008, 12:54 pm

Very good article and i can relate to this. I don’t have emails from 5 years ago, but i do have emails from up to a year ago that i have not deleted just yet and files that i need to delete. My computer occassionally will run slow because of it and is not running as fast as it should.

holly Says:

July 23rd, 2008, 5:52 am

In this article, there is definitely logic, I think that I and my friends, can safely enter the list of dependent people, we are Digital Packrat

Olivier Says:

July 24th, 2008, 22:52 pm

“Ok understood, I will not take 5 years to read that folder, I will just have a VERY quick look and delete it. Bad idea. Ok just delete it because it’s from 3 years ago and I never looked in it.” Yes I used to be like that.

In my opinion the golden rule from this article is: “When you are tempted to file something, see if you can delete it instead.” Because no stock is good, it’s Zen fire sure.

Because I spent countless hour to deal with 10 years of compulsive accumulation, I would like to share my brand new policy about information: expire date and minimal data on my hard drive. When a file arrive on my computer for any reason, I ask myself: when this file will be no more really usefull? This is the expire date.

Information life cycle can have 3 states:
1: very usefull, often.
0.5: sometimes usefull, should be possible to search in
0: archive (or delete it if it’s not critical for your future).

Another tricky question: “Will I use it immediately for something important?” (Thanx to Tim Ferris). If not put it in the magic Archive folder where you never look. Oh and you have already this magic Archive Folder: the Recycle Bin.
If I really need it later I just look in the trash. To make this policy less time consuming I removed the trash from my desktop view. I restore 2 files in 2 months of this policy.

Delete by default and select what you stock.
If necessary outsource backup to 100% automated systems. The tool “Google Desktop” can help you to find what you need on your desktop.

joanna bertrand Says:

August 20th, 2008, 18:42 pm

Ridiculous. This is a joke, isn’t it? What’s so bad about saving digital information? As long as its somewhat organized. Or even if it isn’t why is that so bad. It isn’t like animal or food hoarding - which results in unhygienic conditions. It isn’t like hoarding cheep crap from Walmart or target which results in massive credit card debt and cheep crap in every corner of your house. If you are going to hoard something, why not hoard digital information. Hoard files. Hoard photos of your family. Who cares. Make a thousand duplicates of the same thing. Who cares. What an unnecessary thing to criticize. It’s good to be interested in things, to download things etc. I mean - why not try reading the articles and files that you download once in a while…instead of just deleting them to make a symbolic effort towards clearing space for some future file that is more “practical” or “useful”. ???

Saskia Says:

October 8th, 2008, 14:11 pm

I’d have to say I lean towards agreeing with Joanna Bertrand, although I might state it in slightly more gentle terms! Digital hoarding is not the same kind of thing as hoarding physical objects, it doesn’t have to have any negative impact on your life unless you let it. By way of an analogy, imagine you are very rich, live in a vast mansion and have staff on hand to clean, tidy, run errands, carry out administrative tasks etc. Hoarding wouldn’t be much of a problem for someone in that situation provided they set up a reasonable system for organising their possessions. But for most of us, who have limited storage space, no one to help us keep things organised and to take the boring tasks off our hands, and all the normal stresses and strains of life, hoarding almost always leads to problems. When it comes to computers, however, most of us are in a privilaged position these days, since modern computers have huge hard drives, additional storage is cheap, and we have all sorts of software to help us organise and find items amongst our “digital clutter” (e.g. Google desktop, Evernote, Delicious). OK, so some people are struggling on with out of date computers with small harddrives, but they are in an increasingly small minority.

The key is to keep it relatively organised, although in theory things like Google Desktop mean this matters less and less (it still makes sense to have a logical folder structure, however, as an alternative means of finding things). And computers are much easier to organise that a house is, as you’re not limited by physical constraints like the size and shape of the room, cupboard etc. and it takes less effort to move things around on the computer than it does in real life. As long as it’s all reasonably well ordered the volume of data isn’t really important.