Has anyone done a (hopefully) systematic survey of the processes and software people use to store their stuff, sort of like a usesthis.com but just for storing assets, and how well that's worked over time? My guess is the successful strategies would look a lot like Brajeshwar's comment, a thoughtful plan that uses simple software and formats, some planning for the future, and, probably critically, regularly doing "digital chores".
There've been some efforts in the past to store everything and make it searchable, like the ancient Chandler project, and the possibly still alive Parkeep, none that have been more widely adopted than a strategy of put everything in Gmail, Dropbox, etc, and hope for the best, which is what I do, minus the regular diligence that people like Brajeshwar have.
Making and using anything more complex looks like it turns into a (very cool looking!) hobby in itself, like these:
https://thesephist.com/posts/monocle/
https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous...
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
And yeah, the latter two also include storing and searching more than say email and photos, but maybe shows one's tendency to want to store and search everything.
There've been some efforts in the past to store everything and make it searchable, like the ancient Chandler project, and the possibly still alive Parkeep, none that have been more widely adopted than a strategy of put everything in Gmail, Dropbox, etc, and hope for the best, which is what I do, minus the regular diligence that people like Brajeshwar have.
Making and using anything more complex looks like it turns into a (very cool looking!) hobby in itself, like these:
https://thesephist.com/posts/monocle/
https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous...
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
And yeah, the latter two also include storing and searching more than say email and photos, but maybe shows one's tendency to want to store and search everything.