Much like your digital documents, your digital assets — books, games, pictures, music — accumulate over time. Eventually, it becomes increasingly difficult to find what you’re looking for when you search for a particular item.
To address this, I’d like to propose a simple method for organizing your digital assets. The goal is to help you find what you need quickly, feel less overwhelmed, and even become more inspired when browsing through your collection.
First Principle: One Place Per Asset Category (Plus One for Backup)
Start by designating one digital location for each category of items — and one other place for its backup.
For example, pictures worth remembering should be stored in a specific folder on a particular cloud service, and locally backed up once a week on your laptop.
This simple rule creates order and predictability. You’ll always know where to look when you want to find something.
However, this can get a bit tricky when you have assets that belong to a specific context only. For instance, you might have books you use exclusively for professional purposes or pictures meant for a particular design project. In this case, keep this set of items separate. They are, by definition, their own category — such as personal pictures, professional pictures, or work-related books.Another layer of complexity arises when you use assets tied closely to a specific platform. Theoretically, you could avoid such dependencies,by exporting these into widely adopted formats (i.e. PDF, MP4) but in practice, this can get quite difficult. Take Audible audiobooks, for example. Technically, they’re “yours,” but downloading and consuming them outside of Audible’s ecosystem isn’t straightforward. The same goes for Kindle eBooks. These platforms use proprietary formats that limit portability and ownership.
Because of this, I wouldn’t consider such assets to be truly yours. The platform provider essentially owns them — you’re paying for the right to consume and store them within their approved ecosystem. For these types of assets, I suggest treating them as what they really are: rental platforms. So if you come across an exceptionally interesting book or piece of content that is depending on a platform that you’d like to reference in the future, try to purchase it in a more standardized format — such as EPUB, PDF, or MP4. This ensures that you’ll still have access to it even if the platform disappears or changes its policies.
Second Principle: Set a Regular Time for Maintenance and Backup
Establish a regular schedule to take care of storing and backing up your digital assets, regardless of which platform they originate from.
For example, photos obviously come from your phone, but also from various chats with family and friends, or even social media. You could therefore dedicate an hour every two months to assess which of your digital assets you’d like to keep. This not only prevents your storage from becoming a digital dumping ground but also encourages mindfulness — you’ll be selecting only the photos, songs or books that truly matter to you. Once chosen, store them in your main storage location and update your backup repository accordingly.
Third Principle: Keep Only What Brings You Value
This principle is already implied in the second one, but it’s worth emphasizing: only store and back up what brings you real value.
You don’t need to keep every single book, picture, or file you’ve ever received. Instead, ask yourself whether something brings you enough joy or usefulness to be worth maintaining — meaning, worth backing up every two months and investing time in it.
After saving and backing things up, take a few moments to browse your collection. This practice can be surprisingly rewarding. It gives you a chance to revisit memories, rediscover old inspirations, and perhaps spark new creative ideas. Your digital archive can become more than just storage — it can be a personal source of reflection and inspiration.
By following these three principles — one place per category (plus backup), regular maintenance, and mindful curation — you’ll not only organize your digital assets efficiently but also cultivate a deeper connection with them.
Checklist
- Store each type of asset (photos, books, music, etc.) in one clear location including with one for backup.
- Keep separate folders for different contexts — personal, professional, or project-based.
- Treat platform-locked media (like Audible or Kindle) as rentals, not owned files.
- Prefer open, portable formats (EPUB, PDF, MP4) for anything worth keeping long-term.
- Set a regular schedule — e.g., every two months — to organize and back up your assets.
- Keep only what brings you joy or lasting value, and delete the rest.
- Revisit your collection periodically to stay inspired and spark new ideas.