Thursday, October 30, 2008

Purging & Reorganizing

Lack of a consistent internet connection is giving me lots of spare time. I cold be scrapping but I'm just not feeling it right now, which is a pity because I have some great stuff from Kim Hill to play with it.  But I want to do something productive so I decided it was time for a purge, followed by a reorganization.

So far I have purged 3GBs of scrapping stuff I never use, another 4GBs of audiobooks I have already listened too (backed up onto DVD in case I want to listen again), numerous blurry photos of tops of trees, the ground, random body parts and pictures that were supposed to be of my kids but somehow ended up being of other people's kids. I also backed up and then deleted a bunch of music I never listen to anymore. I feel lighter!

Then I tackled my bookmarks, which fortunately can be accessed off line. I have things I bookmarked back in 2004 in there. Info I no longer need, items I have already purchased, etc. I deleted all the useless stuff and reorganized the rest of it, then used one of my intermittent connections to go through & delete the sites that no longer exist. I can actually find stuff in my bookmarks now!

The other thing I have been doing when my connection works is purging blogs from my reader. I have this binge & purge habit with my reader.  I go through phases where I add dozens of blogs every couple of weeks, usually finding them through links in posts of other blogs I read & from blogrolls on the new blogs,or from blog trains I participated in 6 months ago. But then I don't end up reading most of those new blogs and some of the older ones change focus or post less frequently or I just lose interest for other reasons and I need to purge them.  I had almost 400 blogs in my reader when the internet went out Tuesday. Blogs about food, crochet, photography, digital scrapbooking, parenting, pagans, tarot, books, news, and just random stuff. It's safe to say I maybe read a third of it and skimmed the rest. It was time for a purge.

I'm down to under 100 blogs now and they have been reorganized into better defined folders. I'm glad that is done. I'm going to visit my folks in December. That is prime blog binge time for me. They have cable internet and I have hours with nothing to do but read blogs.

And I'd like to add a plug for Windows Live Writer software. It makes blogging with random internet possible. I create my post, tell it to post and it keeps trying until it finally goes through. You should try it.

10 comments:

Kresta said...

Good for you for doing all that purging!

I totally agree about Live Writer - I use it all the time and love it.

Tracy said...

Wow...you read a lot of blogs! That's awesome that you were able to get rid of so much...I am such a packrat.

The Four Week Vegan said...

You have been most productive. I always feel so good after a major purge.

ChloƩ said...

Wow, that's great!! I can't get rid of things IRL, and it's even worse in digi!! Working on it, though, and you're a good example to follow!

Jenni said...

That's a lot of purging!!! Good for you! Come and do mine now!

Anonymous said...

Isn't it amazing all the crap we can store on our computer?!?!
Good for you getting rid of some of it!

Creative Junkie said...

I keep saying I'm going to check out that Windows Live thing, and I still haven't!

Your post reminds me to clear out my bookmarks. Ugh. It feels like such an overwhelming task, though. There are so many of them and they are so disorganized.

I just dread even the thought of it.

Aunt Becky said...

I'm in dire need of some purging. I'm seriously itching to do so.

Anonymous said...

Must be the season! I just did the same thing today. Are the folders a new feature or have I just missed them all along. Now I have eight categories and that feels more manageable.

Anonymous said...

My computer "purged" for me when the hard drive crashed last month. Need to remember to keep organized and back-up because so much better to delete what you want, when you want...Sounds like a good job accomplished.