Nice reflection over personal data management. I can relate to several moments. I agree specially with one thing: that a good file naming convention is essential and is perhaps the most fundamental piece of data management in conjunction with a wisely chosen folder structure. ISO8601 is perhaps the most important standard in this regard, but I often used the compressed version YYYYMMDD (instead of YYYY-MM-DD), followed by _ and whatever descriptor is suitable.
But as others have already written I have overtime become less and less keen to keeping a lot of stuff. My family knows where the important documents are (say, for valuable inheritable stuff). Digital photos live in an external hard drive. Other things worth keeping for posterity like books, articles, letters, notes etc that may have intellectual, historical or emotional value for others can be kept in a less than 32 Gb external drive.
The rest is just ephemeral dust or electrons ... as perhaps we all are after all :-)
But as others have already written I have overtime become less and less keen to keeping a lot of stuff. My family knows where the important documents are (say, for valuable inheritable stuff). Digital photos live in an external hard drive. Other things worth keeping for posterity like books, articles, letters, notes etc that may have intellectual, historical or emotional value for others can be kept in a less than 32 Gb external drive.
The rest is just ephemeral dust or electrons ... as perhaps we all are after all :-)