My Corner Online

The Fun Extras - Set Nine

180. Delete, Delete, Delete

8/11/2007

Do you remember your very First Freebie Download Frenzie?

At first, you carefully unzipped each one to check out your new goodies. What other hobby can you get so much free stuff? It is like unwrapping Christmas gifts as a child, only someone’s pocket book is safely unharmed. What a thrill to open up folders to see what the download really looks like.

After a while, you begin to download and tell yourself you will unzip them later when you have time. Temporary folders begin to collect all over your desktop. Who has not done this?

You create a temporary folder on your desktop for freebies you will get to later to unzip and sort so at least the desktop appears clean. (This reminds me of a certain someone I know who thinks just because things are out of site, in drawers, under beds, and in closets, that the house is clean.)

Soon, you wondered how to in the world you will ever get those all organized and what system you will organize them into. How will you ever find anything you need? The Great Tagging Era begins. Carefully each item is specially handled and tagged for future use.

Six months go by. You have learned from experience how to discern quality in elements. You have observed your own scrapping style develop and realize that you will never utilize most of what you first downloaded. You begin to download less and are careful with your choices to download.

A year goes by. You still have not used much from your First Freebie Download Frenzie, but you cannot bring yourself to delete any of it. You remind yourself how long it took to download all that stuff, unzip it, and carefully organize and tag it. Deleting the stuff is like deleting your precious time. My time is too important to just hit a delete key and erase it away.

Eighteen months go by. Your hard drive has filled up. You had to purchase a larger external hard drive. It is time to delete. You carefully enter your folders and ever so pricelessly evaluate each and every element. Am I ever going to use this in a layout? No. Then you do it. You reach that little right pinky up there and hit the delete key. Your computer asks if you are sure you want to delete as if it knows your struggles. Be brave. Say okay! Go ahead, it is really okay! Tell your computer! Hesitate no more! Wow, did that feel good!

You delete some more. You delete, and delete, and delete. You sit back and look at your newly cleaned folders and it feels SO good! It feels just like having gone through the house and chosen items for a garage sale or to give to a charity. The dusty places are gone. Everything looks so clean and organized. You can even invite the relatives over now! Ahhhhh! What took me so long to do this? I should have done it a long time ago.

Two years go by. You are much better about immediately deleting things after you download that you will never use before you even sort them and tag them. However, you realize that you carefully bypassed all those first downloads with your favorite designer’s name upon them. She is one of your favorite designers, so those things must be good, right? But, you have still had them on your hard drive for two years and never used them. You decide to open one of them up and take a peek. Ugggg! It is horrible!

Delete, delete, delete! Go ahead. Hit that button!

I found comfort in realizing that even the first freebies of designers that are now great were horrible. That means that even I have a chance at becoming a better designer. No one is immune from the dreaded embarrassment of giving away icky freebies. I know I have shared a lot of them. So if you have any out there with my name on them, please, please – delete, delete, delete! It just down right feels good!