Post written by Leo Babauta.

I have a confession to make: until recently, I was a digital packrat.

While my outer life has become fairly simple, as I declutter my home and workspace, and my paper files have also become pretty simple, my digital life was a mess.

I had all kinds of files on my hard drive, just because I thought I might need them. I had all kinds of files in my email, because Gmail storage is so cheap (free) that I felt I didn’t need to delete anything. Photos, mp3s, video files, pdfs, word processing documents, spreadsheets, you name it, and I had a bunch of them somewhere.

Trouble is, there are costs to such packrattery. It can slow down your computer, it can complicate your life, it can cost you time in terms of productivity, and it can stress you out more than you know.

How do I know? Because I recently decluttered my digital life to a great extreme, and the relief and speed increases I’ve found since then have been enormous.

How to Know If You’re a Digital Packrat

The main way to know: 1) you feel that you should keep a lot of files “just in case”; 2) it takes you too long to find stuff; 3) your digital life is becoming complicated, with multiple email accounts, drives, storage mediums and either a mess of files or a mess of folders.

But here are a few symptoms:

Do you have 20 or more folders and sub-folders in your documents folder on your hard drive? Is your list of Internet bookmarks long and overwhelming? Is your email program nearly full, or do you use more than one email account because of all the storage you need? Do you have multiple duplicates of photos, and is it hard to find a photo you need? Is your hard drive 75% full or more? Do you have multiple accounts for similar things, making it hard to find stuff? Are any of your digital file systems overwhelming? Do you have email from 5 years ago? Do you have project files from 2 years ago? Do you have folders of stuff to read that would take a year to actually read?

If you answered “yes” to more than one of these questions, more than likely, you’re a digital packrat. Welcome to the club!

Now, if being a digital packrat is OK with you, I am not disparaging you. But if you’d like to declutter your digital life and learn the simpler ways of a Zen Habits digital existence, see the next section for a cure and some practical tips based on my experience.

How to Cure Digital Packrattery, With Practical Tips

If you’re a digital packrat like I am, and want to be cured, there is a simple cure that I’ve gone through and recommend to everyone:

Go through a massive purge. In the beginning, you’ll need to devote some time to purging files. Thirty minutes a day is a good time — put it in your calendar, and just spend 30 minutes purging everything you can. See the tips below for more details. When you’re done with your massive purge, it feels amazing! It’s worth the time you spend doing it. Aim for a simple digital life. Once you’re purged of all the clutter and junk, see if you can keep things simple. When you are tempted to file something, see if you can delete it instead. When it comes time to create another account for more storage, see if you can reduce your storage needs instead. At all turns, aim to simplify instead of complicate. This is more of a change in mindset than anything else. Develop purging routines. It’s important to do some regular house cleaning of your digital files. Just as you have to clean your house regularly, or it will become junk-ridden and cobweb-filled, you have to clean your digital house as well. Once a week or once a month, depending on the amount of stuff you amass, should be a good interval for purging. If you want to be really organized, develop a checklist of things to purge during these regular intervals.

This “cure” actually sounds simpler than it is in practice, as digital packrats face overwhelming tasks if they want to purge their files