Introduction
This is going to be a short and light post, but I hope you'll give it a read.
Recently I rethought how I handle deleting unnecessary files on my PC, so I thought I'd write about it.
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How do you usually delete unnecessary files on your PC? I used to run on a vague sense of "I'll do it when I feel like it" or "I'll clean up little by little" (and I suspect a lot of people manage things in a similar way). In my case, the very idea of "organizing unnecessary files on my PC" was vague to begin with — I hadn't decided when I'd do it or how much I'd do. As a result, my PC was chronically accumulating data, always in a cluttered state, with me deleting things at random whenever I felt like it. A pretty sloppy way of managing things.
The intention was there, but in practice almost nothing happened. The only time I actually moved was when storage ran out and I couldn't save something. Completely reactive, in other words.
"Do it little by little" sounds low-friction and easy to sustain — it looks good on the surface — but since the when and how-much weren't defined, the days where I didn't do anything just piled up.
Replacing the rule with "time × amount"
So the other day, I tried replacing the rule with two concrete elements. I set the timing of the deletion to "every week," and the amount to delete to "1–3 GB." That way, both the frequency and the target are clearly defined.
The "1–3 GB" number comes from a rough estimate of how much data I add in a typical week. In my case I have a vague sense of that number because of the kind of work I do, so I just decided on it. If you don't have that sense, you could check the diff size from a backup tool, or — going more analog — note today's free space and check the same spot a week later. That should be enough to get a feel for it. The basic idea is simple arithmetic: if you delete more than what gets added, your free space gradually increases.
What I found interesting after trying this was that the axis of judgment flipped.
Under the old approach, I'd ask "is this file necessary?" and if it seemed necessary, I'd keep it. My default posture was tilted toward "keep," so when I hesitated I'd keep the file, and my hand would tend to stop moving.
After setting the quota, I started asking "which ones can I delete to hit this week's amount?" The default posture switched to "delete," so I started actively looking for candidates. Looking at the same files, the conclusion of whether to keep or delete probably comes out differently.
What I was actually doing was changing the default of judgment
Put more abstractly, this was a story about switching the default of my cognition.
The "weekly × 1–3 GB" rule looks like just a quota from the outside. But what I was actually doing was replacing the question I ask myself when looking at a file — from "is this necessary?" to "can this be deleted?" — which is a fairly internal piece of work.
When you ask "is this necessary?", the default becomes "keep." When you hesitate, the file stays, and not making a judgment effectively means "hold = keep." On the other hand, when you ask "can this be deleted?", the default switches to "delete." Hesitation puts the file into the "candidate to discard" pile, and not making a judgment means nothing moves forward, so things naturally start moving. Looking at the same file, just changing the first question you ask leads to surprisingly different conclusions.
So the rule, it turns out, might be best understood as a device that lets me avoid consciously flipping that switch every time. By setting a quota, I'm putting myself in a state where the default of judgment is automatically tilted toward "delete." That's how it feels, anyway.
Closing thoughts
This time the topic was "regularly reducing unnecessary data on my PC," which isn't a particularly important subject — just a small everyday thing. But what I found, personally, was that a tiny shift in how I framed the problem made a noticeable difference in the outcome. Deleting unnecessary data is just one example; I suspect the same approach can be applied to other things too. When a habit has become stuck in vagueness and stopped moving, applying the two axes of "time" and "amount" might be enough to get other things moving as well, I felt.
Thanks for reading.
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