Organizing over 200gb of stash (217 to be exact) is my idea of a nightmare but to be more efficient at scrapping it needs to be done. Am considering starting afresh in a way - going back into my old stuff and doing a mass delete session or something so that its not so overwhelming. Realistically I probably only look at and use what I've purchased in the past 2-5 years but the thought of permanently deleting anything I've bought sends me in a tailspin because what if I want it again and I've paid good money for it. I'm fine not downloading all the freebies or deleting what I don't want from those but anything paid I struggle with. Help me decide what to do?
This is what I did a few years back. I moved everything to an EHD before deleting anything. Then I went through each folder (mine were organized by store/designer or miscellaneous) and looked at them. I had started collecting by downloading freebies from here and there. Those I ended up deleting. Most were very outdated and probably not something I would use again since they were from 2007/2008. I then went through the stuff that I had actually purchased. I deleted some but not all of it. Those designers that I had a lot of items from, I kept. Especially those that I was on a CT for 8 to 10 years ago. This stuff all lives on EHD's and doesn't take up space on my desktop hard drive. But I will say that I have needed some of it just this last year. I found in my latest project that I had done a CT layout for 1 or 2 photos that I actually had a bunch more of the event. So when doing the additional layouts I used the same kit as before... even though the kits were 8 years old. But then I can say that I do actually like some of my older kits better than some of the new stuff out there because it fits my style of scrapping better.
My After MOC plan is to work more on organizing. But, I started similar to Rene. I put everything on an external hard drive. That protected me in case I accidentally deleted something! Then: I went through each folder. A designer that I never use? Delete. A freebie that is bad quality? Delete. I was less discerning about freebies when I started. A retired designer? I usually delete off my hard drive, and leave on the external. That way, I can grab those kits if I want, but I don't accidentally use them in MOC or anything. The trick for me was to high level decide first. and that narrowed down what I still had. Then it was easier to narrow down in the active designers what I still liked and used, compared to what I was done with. And since I knew it was on the external - I could get 'delete happy' in a folder.
@HavaDrPepper @bestcee doh...why didn’t I think of putting everything onto an ehd and going from there, it seems such an obvious move now.
