I used to be a digital pack rat. When it came to file management, I lived by two rules:
- Keep everything
- File like a librarian
I tried to keep everything in a personal Dewey decimal system of nesting folders. I had dozens of categories for files, bookmarks, feeds and other pieces of digital detritus. Most of them in turn had subcategories and sub-subcategories.
While this provided for a lot of busywork, it didn’t really make my life any easier. In trying to establish an ontology of what everything was, I ignored the question of what files were important. The files I really needed to get to quickly or often were scattered about in a deep hierarchy.
A library is built around the idea that any book needs to be indexed and found. My computer, on the other hand, has just one user: me. And I’m never again going to look at most of the tens of thousands of files I create or download.
There was an element of self-delusion to it, too. I’m being organized, I thought to myself. All this organization simply needs to be done, or I’ll never find anything. And there was the vain hope that by keeping bookmarks, I might one day read all those interesting-looking articles that I never got around to.
Now, I’m trying to change my habits. There are two new rules I play by:
- Discard by default
- File based by need
Discard doesn’t always mean delete, but that’s a good way to handle lots of files. That video I just watched? Throw it away! Who has time to watch anything twice?
Deleting things can be strangely liberating. I’ve cut the size of my music library in half by throwing away tracks I didn’t really like. Automatic backups reduce the pain, since I can always rescue a deleted file. (I never have, though.)
Things that I can’t just delete, I archive away in a place I don’t have to look at. Year-old mail? Never needed to look at it, but I’ll keep copies tucked away outside my actual mail program.
The second part is organizing files by what they mean to me. For example, there are four folders sitting in my dock:
- Files I’m working on now
- Files to work on next
- Files I need often
- Downloads
The downloads folder works as a secondary todo for videos, ebooks etc. I clear away the files I’ve seen, trying to keep the folder empty.
Likewise, my RSS reader now has four categories instead of dozens:
- Feeds I want to read as soon as they update
- Feeds with small, fun tidbits
- Feeds with long articles, for when I have the time
- Feeds I follow for work
This simple sorting matches my needs much better than what I had before. The reader also keeps track of my usage habits, so I can unsubscribe feeds I don’t really care about.