The nine-copies-of-a-snowblower-warranty problem

The Nine-Copies-of-a-Snowblower-Warranty Problem

Okay, so last lesson we did names, and one thing about your mess. You told on yourselves a little. I appreciated that.

Now we're going to look at the mess itself. Not fix it yet. Just look at it, honestly, without flinching.

Here's the thing though. Most people think their file situation is uniquely bad. It isn't. I promise you it isn't. I want to show you something before we go any further, because I think it'll help.

The screenshot I show every class

A while back I was cleaning up my computer and I found the SAME PDF saved in nine different places. Nine. Across two computers. It was the warranty for a snowblower.

Not tax documents. Not something with Angela's social security number in it. A snowblower warranty. And I had it in "Documents," in "Downloads," in a folder called "Important," in a folder called "Important (2)," on the desktop, in an email attachment I'd saved separately, and a few more spots I honestly can't even reconstruct now.

I lined all nine up in a screenshot because I couldn't believe it myself. I still have that screenshot. I show it on day one every single time I teach this class, because if the guy teaching the class has nine copies of a snowblower warranty, then whatever you've got going on in your Downloads folder right now... you're fine. You're not behind. You're just a person with a computer.

Does that make sense so far? Good. Moving on.

Why this happens (it's not a you problem)

It happens because saving something feels like solving something. You download the PDF, it lands wherever it lands, and your brain checks the box: "handled." Then two weeks later you need it again, you can't remember where it went, so you download it again. Or you find the email and save the attachment again. Each time feels like progress. It's actually just more copies of the same needle, in a bigger haystack.

Downloads is where files go to die, by the way. I say this a lot in this class, you'll hear it again. If a file lands in Downloads and doesn't get moved somewhere real within a day, it's basically gone. Not deleted-gone. Worse. Buried-gone, where you know it exists somewhere but you'll never find it without a lot of pain.

Tonight's actual task: just look

I'm not going to have you organize anything yet. Tonight, open up your computer and just take stock. Here's how:

1. Open your Downloads folder. Just look at it. Don't touch anything. How many files are in there? Ballpark it. Twenty? Two hundred? No judgment, I need the number for my own curiosity honestly.

1. Open your Desktop. Same thing. Some of you have a desktop that's wall-to-wall icons, I've seen it, it's a real thing.

1. Pick one file you know you have more than once somewhere. A tax form, a photo, a resume, whatever. See if you can find all its copies. Don't delete them yet. Just find them and notice where they are.

1. Write down, on paper or in a note, one sentence: "My mess mostly lives in ___." For a lot of you it'll be Downloads. For some of you it's email attachments you never moved anywhere. For a couple of you it's going to be a external hard drive you haven't plugged in since 2019, and that's fine too, we'll get there.

That's it. That's the whole assignment tonight. Look at the mess, name where it lives, don't clean it up yet.

Don't delete — decide

I want to say one thing before you close your laptop, because I know some of you are itching to start deleting stuff right now, I can feel it from here.

Don't. Not tonight, and honestly, mostly not ever, is kind of my stance. Most organizing advice tells you to throw things away, and what I've noticed, teaching this class and watching people freeze up, is that "just delete stuff" is terrible advice for most humans. You look at four thousand photos and someone says "delete the bad ones" and you close the laptop and go make dinner instead. I don't blame you one bit.

So we're not doing that. We're going to build a system where you don't have to make four thousand tiny decisions. Search beats sorting, most of the time. We'll get into that next lesson.

Tonight is just about seeing your mess clearly, the way you'd look at a garage before a project, not a garage you're ashamed of, just a garage you're about to deal with. 👍

Before next time: don't clean anything up. Just notice, and bring me that one sentence — "my mess mostly lives in ___" — written down somewhere you won't lose it. Which, I recognize, is a little bit funny, given the class we're in. 🌞