Are you a digital hoarder?
Mar 29, 2012, 10:42 AM | Updated: Mar 30, 2012, 6:11 am
Your desk may be clear of clutter, but are you hiding a mass of digital clutter? (AP Photo/file).
 Your desk may be clear of clutter, but are you hiding a mass of digital clutter? (AP Photo/file) |
Hit TV shows like A&E’s “Hoarders,” TLC’s “Hoarding:
Buried Alive,” and even “Confessions: Animal Hoarding” on
Animal Planet have shined the spotlight on hoarders. But
while all these shows focus on hoarding of physical
objects, it turns out there’s another breed of hoarders
filling up the digital space.
“I think the same reasoning, the same emotions, the same
reasons that we might tend to hoard or accumulate physical
things can also apply to digital things,” said Katherine
Tresize, President of the Institute for Challenging
Disorganization.
Tresize said while digital hoarding doesn’t pose the same
risks as physical hoarding, it can still be disruptive to
your daily life.
“It’s true that your computer is not going to fall over
and fall on top of you because you’ve accumulated a lot of
digital files,” said Tresize. “But it does clutter not
only your hard drive, but it also clutters your memory,
and your focus, and your concentration.”
In an appearance on 97.3 KIRO FM Seattle’s Morning News,
Tresize explained that too much digital stuff “dilutes
your focus on what’s the most important thing for you to
be doing right now.”
“One can accumulate so many things that there’s not even
any time to go back and look at them and make a decision
later.”
She said she thinks most hoarding comes from fear that you
won’t be able to locate the item again if you were to get
rid of it, or say navigate away from web page.
“How many times do we save a website because we’re afraid
we’re not going to be able to find it again? How many
times do we put icons on our desktop again because we’re
afraid we’re not going to be able to find it again?” said
Tresize.
So before saving something just because you think you
won’t be able to locate it again, Tresize recommends
asking yourself when you actually plan to use it.
“I have a lot of clients who collect recipes,” said
Tresize. “They have more recipes than there are days
probably in the rest of their lives.”
“I encourage people to look at the timeline, look at when
they think that they might want to use this, is it
something that is in the reasonable, foreseeable future?”
If not, maybe just Google it again later.
By JAMIE GRISWOLD, MyNorthwest.com Editor
