I dont get as many emails as jono anyway so thats not so much a problem. I sort everything very well and scrub lots of emails regularly but they are still backed up on gmail anyway. For my blog ill post almost any comment but I review comments from new people just in case.

I have been trying to implement this but getting people to agree to delete data is very hard, the “I just might need that” argument is very strong.

It’s like ones history. With disk space being so cheap and hard drives getting bigger and bigger, why deleting anything.

Of course this is all my personal data kept on my computer. I don’t like leaving trails on the internet because I don’t have control over it….just as I don’t have control over the destiny of this comment

Gerv

In terms of bugging me about when to advise it with pop-ups of “how about now?” I would want the software to monitor when I have said no previously, and attempt to ask at times when I’ve previously said yes. Perhaps there’s some time on Wednesday afternoon when I normally have nothing on and do stuff like that – by monitoring when I do that and learning, it could ask me at a time that is likely to work for me.

As for mis-filing, there’s no real reason it couldn’t create temporary symlinks or shortcuts in multiple places, for a suitable period (perhaps two days, perhaps longer, depending on access and usage by the user). That way it could move the file into the structure but keep it being accessible for the time being, until I don’t need it any more.

There’s plenty of stuff that would need to be worked out, but in general I think it could work quite well. I would imagine that something like ALICE could be used to provide a learning, talking AI to attempt to provide a more natural frontend.

If yes then fine, but most would rather not, but what happens if it put something in a wrong place, can you forgive the system and correct it?

I think the biggest problem with this is it is all or nothing (At the moment).

I think the main problem is public information that you later forget about, these sorts of trails I do try and clear, just out of paranoia.

At the end of the day, I’m constantly warned by lecturers how possible recruiters will search for me on Facebook and Flickr etc and I make sure I cut off Facebook from everyone apart from close friends and everything public I filter to make sure only what I want people to see will be found.

The only issue is if I later want to filter this data differently, that it becomes a bit of an issue.

Personally its Public vs Private in terms whether I “tidy up” my digital stuff or not.

Im the same with my PC. Im always deleting old stuff and stuff I don’t need.

-Unlikely to refer to it again? Zip it all and slap it in your storage location. -Probably refer to it in the future. Just label and tag it. -Don’t keep drafts unless they have some unique value. Don’t duplicate documents. That’s what backups are for. -Don’t be a tagging/labeling perfectionist. If you didn’t geotag your photos from 5 years ago don’t bother now or do it at a very high level. -Only categorize/archive and backup your own data. Backing up old podcasts or lolcats images is pointless. Stick them in a folder if you want to but don’t try and maintain it for order or quality. Storage is cheap your time isn’t.

I’ve found that in applying for residency in another country having old emails to confirm flight dates, communications and other things have been invaluable. Without these I would have struggled to even complete the application form. Other things like paylsips, tax forms, etc are obvious must keeps for up to 10 years depending on where you live.

For me physical items are far more burdensome than electronic so I scan everything that I don’t HAVE to keep the original of then bin it. The result is that I have one file containing all my paperwork ever. It was liberating trashing reams of paper. I’ve started doing the same with other ’stuff’ in my life and have found that it’s an invaluable process. As a result I’m less materialistic and don’t waste money on whims.

As far as wanting to forget a part of your life then I suppose some people would find it very liberating; knowing that no one else would ever find out about x or y. I’d rather, foolishly perhaps, hope that with most people having this large life history would result in introspection, personal development and a less judgemental world.

Maybe some good rules of thumb for keeping old data should be floated? I kinda think that if the data isn’t worth sharing, its going to head for the bin, no? All my own intentions of keeping old coursework or old projects around keep appearing moot: most of this data ages so quickly or is something that’s now better on Wikipedia, it’s hardly worth keeping. But if it’s worth sharing, then it proves value to someone else.

If people got in the habit of deleting things from the internet after some period of time, individuals would get in the habit of saving local copies of things that they thought they might need someday. This would make things worse.

If anything, the whole point is to make this gigantic pile of data easier to work with, and make the concept of deleting or partitioning data go away.

All of my file-system data is version controlled, so I still have access to old files, without them junking up the file system. With things like photographs, I only keep the best ones. I don’t have a “desktop” so there’s no crap on it and my physical table is normally clean also.

I recommend tacking a look at the following links:

http://zenhabits.net/2007/01/email-zen-clear-out-your-inbox/

http://becomingminimalist.wordpress.com/benefits-of-minimalism/

http://www.farbeyondthestars.com/?p=991

http://zenhabits.net/2009/05/how-to-create-a-minimalist-computer-experience/

I think the reason that a lot of people keep all their data is because it’s easier to keep it than to throw it away. The downside of this is that if you ever do need that data again, you will probably have forgotten that you ever had it in the first place. The stuff that matters gets lost in with all the stuff that doesn’t matter.

For example, I’ve got stacks of JPEGs covering photos of me, photos I’ve taken, stuff I’ve saved from the ‘net, scanned in stuff. I would like photos I’ve taken to be sorted into a timeline of sorts, allowing me to see when and if possible, where they were taken.

I’d want random junk from the ‘net collated into a group of folder by themes such as “amusing”, “impressive”, “WTF”, etc..

If I could have documents be treated that way also, I’d be very pleased.

By having an AI sort through it, context could be used as a determinant, or I could be prompted with questions such as “What do these photos have in common?” or “These photos were all taken within 24 hours of each other, what was the event?”.

Perhaps it’s a lofty dream, but I think that would be incredibly helpful.

I personally delete allot of stuff. All the old emails that are not relevant anymore I get rid of them. For example if I leave a mailing list I usually delete all the emails I got from it. Also whenever I loose interest in something I remove all the stuff I had on it. That goes hand in hand with having everything labeled in my gmail account. Also all the usual spam and funny mails I get rid of them regularly. That’s helped by the fact that I only have a few people sending me those. And everything that’s left after that and still really old goes into the “Old stuff” label which I have hidden so I don’t even remember it’s there. It would be the same as removing all labels and archiving the mail. I also moved from yahoo to gmail a while back and deleted everything I had on the old account in the process. I kept just a few things that I thought were important and removed everything else.

I don’t delete pictures or e-mails that are work related(current job). And I wouldn’t delete comments either but that’s a matter of censorship which doesn’t entirely apply to personal data. But one thing I would like to remove but really can’t is the stuff that’s out there in the cloud and I really don’t want to have anything to do with. For example on facebook I regularly get invites or suggestions to add people I don’t want to see anymore, for one reason or another. Actually I deleted my facebook account too because the virtual relationships started to bug me out. But with everything going social these days whenever you create a new account on anything you’re sucked right back into the past. Why can’t I just move on if I want to? And no I’m not talking about an ex girlfriend here.

Also from what you guys said I take it you keep lots of unread emails in your inbox. I used to do that a while back but then I saw this lecture by Randy Pauch on time management. I think it’s the best thing I’ve seen on the subject and I highly recommend it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT0

Oh and why do we assume things are always going to be there. You never know what might happen to flicker in the future…

Email on the other hand, I don’t delete at all. And I must agree with Jono: it’s just handy to find that 5yo conversation with x on y subject. Documents sent through gmail are handy to relocate as well, so I have a lot of that stored there as well, with no local backup of it. Certain other documents end up in a Dropbox directory, spread over several pc’s at home and at work.

Not all that well organized when you come to think of it, maybe a bit worrying. Maybe a good idea to try and store everything in one place. And then have several backups of that in different physical places and different physical formats.