Lose Everything
Cory over a Boing Boing has an a-ha moment after reading John Battelle’s The Search. If I follow Cory’s thinking, at some point it must become cheaper to lose what you’ve finished using instead of filing and keeping it When you need it later you just search.
In the real world you give away or sell your books, music, videos and when you want one, just search and buy it again. If the cost of acquisition means you don’t need the square footage to keep it then the only question is “how long do you have to wait between wanting it and getting it?”
In the virtual world, storage means hard drive space or maintaining your folders and backups. If you found something you like on-line use it and delete it - or keep it in a bin, but don’t bother categorizing it and backing it up. When you need it again, just search. Better yet, just add it to Greg’s Group Networked Backup and you’ll never have to keep track of anything ever again.