Files, physical and digital

I'm a person who likes to keep things. When I was about fifteen I saw a filing cabinet outside a junk shop and I knew I wanted it right away, because I loved organizing things and the idea of keeping all my things neatly filed pleased me a lot. I still have that same filing cabinet, and I've only recently started using the second drawer for files - for a long time it was just for storing art supplies. That's because shortly after getting my first filing cabinet, I got my first personal computer, and I was able to save absolutely everything in digital form.

Over the years, I've had many different computers and I've reorganized both my physical and digital filing systems several times. Every time I move to a new house or a new computer I transfer all my files, bring along my legacy data and set it up so it makes sense with any new additions. I've spent many hours creating elaborate and logical file hierarchies to make years of documents easy to find - at least for me. While I've had some trouble squeezing my filing cabinet into my tiny Toronto apartment, I've never had a problem making space for old files on a new computer. Digital storage is constantly expanding, and cloud storage is increasing that effect exponentially. Physical space is much more limited than digital space, and I can't imagine a constraint that could stop me from hanging onto the digital copies of old school assignments that feel so important - although I haven't looked at them in years.

I know there's a flaw in my system, though, and if I'd like to keep good records of my research and work it's something I'll have to change. Right now, I keep files in their original format - paper in my filing cabinet, word documents on my hard drive and an external backup, and collaborative work on a cloud drive. While I have a few backups in case of problems, the best way to ensure something is kept safe is to have multiple formats. I don't imagine I'll start printing out my powerpoint presentations, but it would be much better practice to keep digital files both on a hard drive and in cloud storage. More importantly, digitizing my paper files would make it much easier to ensure they're preserved and available when I need them.