Josh Evnin

My Packrat Tendencies

So I’m in the process of packing my room. This is always a rather booooring, slow, tedious, yet insightful process. I get to go through all my stuff and realize that there are many things that I own that I never ever interact with, ever. Except when I’m preparing to move them.

I just came across all of my most important notes from college. The notes and quizzes and exams and everything else that got me through my undergrad Cognitive Science education. I rarely look at these notes anymore (though I have used them, on occasion). The only thing is, they fill half of a large box and are quite heavy. So I’m left to wonder, do I REALLY need these notes anymore?

The obvious answer is Probably Not…but I think it’s a tougher answer than just that. I get so attached to the work I do…to simply throw it in the trash seems wrong. For years I kept my scribbles and notes from elementary school, junior high, and high school in 2 huge boxes in an extra room at my home. I think my mom finally got fed up with them and threw them out. That was fine by me…probably because I had no choice, had plenty of time to part with them, and their purpose had been served. (My goal was to keep notes so my younger sister could get extra help in a subject if she needed…I think she might have looked at my Calculus notes, but I could be wrong.)

I’ve packed my CogSci notes into the box, but who knows if they’ll end up making this move. How can I just leave all my CogSci knowledge in a box in the trash?

In

4 responses

  1. tamara aviva evnin Avatar
    tamara aviva evnin

    i don’t think i ever used your calculus notes, but thanks anyway?
    😉

  2. Mom Avatar
    Mom

    And I think you gave me permission to through out your stuff!!! Hey, your dad finally got rid of his law school notes this year–what’s 30 years???
    If thre’s anything important in your notes, why not scan it and keep in on the computer?????

  3. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    I’d agree with your mom — if you really think you might want the stuff later, scanning it in is probably your best choice.

    From a preservation standpoint, you should consider that the lifespan for stuff that you’ve written down may not be as long as you might hope unless you’ve taken care to use archival quality writing materials (i.e.: using only graphite pencils or archival safe pens, such as gel pens & good acid-free paper).

    If you’re looking at stuff written with regular pen on plain notebook paper, it’d be best to scan stuff now before it starts to fade (though you might have a few years of safety if you keep the temperature & humidity where it’s stored controlled and don’t expose it to sunlight).

    This would be why I went against Marty’s recommendations and got myself a nice acid-free sketchpad rather than a notebook and made sure to use only pencil for taking notes & sketching out designs.

  4. S Avatar
    S

    As always. I m a fan of throwing things away. If you can, throw it away. I would throw away my appendages if I could replace them. However, be systematic in throwing things away. Organize u Cognitiv Science notes. Decide what is worth keeping. Maintain a benchmark for what is worth keeping and what should be thrown. Then throw it like you are Kobe Bryant. Extremely Anal and ridiculous advise? Absolutely.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *