This year, I have hoarded over 10,000 e-mails so far (Jan to October 2009), totalling close to 1.5 GB of e-mail data.

Why? Because I keep telling myself that I might need it again in the future. The reality is that I never go back into this e-mail history, ever. So I’ve implemented the following “filing guidelines” for myself:

Only keep an email if there is still an action I need to do on it (e.g. process it for action later, or pending reply). Once the action has been completed, delete the e-mail. If the content is really important, then:

• capture important information such as passwords and “how to’s” in my OneNote notes, or
• save it to my personal reference folders (as a last resort)

The result? I deleted the repository and freed up 1.5 GB of space. The e-mail clutter noise is gone. The crazy routine of spending hours a week of filing and moving and sorting and searching e-mails is gone. Really important stuff is kept in OneNote, or my personal reference folders.