Cleaning Out the Hard Drive

[tjmiller]

Fellow warriors,
Tonight I was kind of in one of those moods. I have several things that I need to be working on, but my head wasn't quite in it. I did want to do something remotely productive though, so I started going through the massive collection of information on my hard drive to see what I might need to revisit, and what I should delete.

Now, I have things organized in My Documents by category. My categories might not make sense to everyone but they work for me. The problem is, I had a large number of PDFs that I had never categorized, so I started with those first.

One thing I am discovering is this: I save stuff on my computer because people told me I SHOULD. In other words, I had information from email lists that I unsubscribed from long ago.

Why did I unsubscribe? Because those particular voices did not speak to ME. Some of these are big names in the business.

• A well-known blogger that is recommended by everyone to everyone.
• A product creation "genius" whose name everyone would recognize.
• A copywriter with a magic pen when it comes to copywriting, but his instructional stuff was just boring.
• More than one marketing guru whose words are supposed to be the holy grail.

The thing about all of this stuff is that I had heard so many times: learn from this person, he is awesome; subscribe to that list, you don't want to miss it, etc.

But if you find yourself skimming to the bottom just to get through it, you aren't learning much. You have to find someone who speaks your language.

So I am deleting the information that I can't bring myself to read, and rereading the stuff that speaks to me.

Who are some of the ones whose voice makes my brain sit up and pay attention?

In no particular order:

Jimmy D. Brown (of course, a fellow Arkansan)
Travis Sago (ditto)
Tiffany Dow (Texas is right next door)
Dennis Becker
Josh Spaulding
Chris Farrell
Brian Clark
Nicole Dean
Gene Pimentel

I'm sure there are others but these are definitely favorites. Some of these people actually have their own personal folders in my category list. I won't say who, becauseI don't want anyone to get jealous.

The purpose of my ramble?

Listen to the people who make you "get it," not the ones who make everybody else "get it."

I started to post this in the off-topic forum because it was such a ramble, but it does have to do with Internet Marketing, so here ya go!

[pro.it.media]

Getting organized is really a big help

[svtbolt]

Teresa,

I agree and finally did the same thing. Staying focused on one successful method has made a world of difference for me. I lost count to the number of email subscriptions I unsubscribed from and junk on my computer that I deleted.

[Obilex]

I just reformatted my hard drive this past week, I went through and backed up anything that I truly NEEDED, and scrapped the rest. Working on a clean machine is just as important as a clean desk or room, no distractions or clutter.

[Mohammad Afaq]

Originally Posted by tjmiller

Listen to the people who make you "get it," not the ones who make everybody else "get it."

True, Very True. Just pick your guru and pick his method, then stick to his teachings and make some $$$$$$$.

[tbone3]

I organized all my IM information three months ago and it's been great! It's awesome, I hate feeling unorganized. Save so much time in the long run trying to retrieve information. One thing I find really helps is to have a folder called "Install Files" to put all your installation files in. Makes it easier when you reformat your computer.

[Traffic-Bug]

True indeed, on the topic of cleaning your hard drive, it is better to take a backup of all that you might need in future, and copy them to an external hard drive or to online backup services like mozy.

[theunknownthem]

I've been saving everything thing I've come across because I'm a noob and I'm in information overload. So what I've been doing is just saving it all for another day. I'm pretty sure that day will never come and I'll just keep stacking stuff up until it's so dated it's no good. By then I'll probably have newer stuff mixed in with it and not know which is which.

Currently I've been spending my time working on removing myself from mailing lists. So far without much rhyme or reason other than maybe the person just annoyed me because he/she just sent me the same sales letter I've already seen 20 times from 20 other marketers. Probably not the best way to do it, as I'm really only meaning to delete the people I'm getting nothing but sales letter after sales letter from.

Your post though brings up a good point and I should take the time to go through this information and start tossing them into the trash as well and save only the one's I find to be gems and want to try out. Unfortunately being new I really don't know what is good and what isn't. What I need to do is toss it all out, put everything I've done on pause, and do something like the 30 day challenge and faithfully follow it so I quit getting so sidetracked.