At some time or another, we all upgrade our computers. And when the time comes, most people meticulously back up every bit of data they possibly can - often to load directly onto the new computer. But in many cases, for whatever reason it just doesn’t get there.
This is the situation I found myself in about 9 months ago when I moved onto the current laptop I use. I have a ton of data that just never seemed to make it to this machine. And while I thought I’d really miss it, save for only two or three instances, I really haven’t.
I asked around, and many of my friends report similar experiences.
So what does all of this mean? Are we all just digital packrats, carrying around way more data than we need to, even more than we can conceivably keep track of? Or is this one of the wonderful parts of this new digital world that we live in? Maybe we should treat all data like Google tells us to treat email - never deleting anything, simply archiving it so that it can be searched later if necessary. But I’m starting to wonder how valuable that old data really is.
Over the past number of years, I have at least 5 GB of PST files of my email archives. I haven’t looked at them since I backed them up to make room on my hard drive. Okay, let’s be honest; I haven’t used them since I started using Gmail. I suppose there could be some interesting nuggets of information in them, but realistically my likelihood of finding anything useful in that haystack of useless data is next to nil. It’s like keeping an archive of every personal conversation you’ve ever had - just trying to remember where the good stuff is would be impossible.
But I also can’t subscribe to the extreme notion of treating email like voicemail. There’s a contingent (this is particularly popular amongst the capital P Productivity crowd) that believes we should read an email once, determine whether it needs an action to be taken, and delete the email. I garner way too much value from being able to search my relevant old email, particularly in my daily business, to consider this drastic measure.
So how do we find the balance? What to keep, what to get rid of? Is anything over 3 years old even worth worrying about anymore? Give give us your thoughts.