Cruft
Thursday, September 10, 2015 at 05:40AM Cruft is jargon for anything that is left over, redundant and getting in the way. It is used particularly for superseded and unused technical and electronic hardware and useless, superfluous or dysfunctional elements in computer software. Wikipedia
Along with plenty of reading and reflection, I’ve been cleaning out lots of the cruft, physical and digital, that has accumulated over many years. Including a few bags of stuff brought home from the former cubicle. No matter the origins, it’s a process that’s often quite cathartic. [On his retirement activities] Tim Stahmer, Some Things Never Change
I love discovering a new and useful word. "Cruft" is the perfect term for all that digital garbage in one's harddrive or Dropbox, in one's e-mail, and on one's website that simply accumulates slowly, unnoticeably, and relentlessly. The detritus of digital activity.
In the physical world, I do a pretty good job of eliminating cruft. I regularly weed my book shelves, desk drawers, file cabinets, clothes closets, and garage. With the exception of souvenirs from my travels and handmade gifts from my children, I have no qualms about pitching something.
Digitally, discarding the obsolescent, redundant, and useless is more challenging. Probably because the medium that stores 1000 PowerPoint files weighs about the same as the medium that stores 1 of them, assuming one is not using the cloud which weighs exactly the same and uses exactly the same amount of space - nada.
As I get prepared for moving - just in case my house ever sells - I am tossing a lot of physical cruft. If I have not used something in the 15 years I've lived in this house, it get tossed, gifted, or sold. Why should I not then dump anything digital I have not used in 15 years?
A teacher commented this week that before our department started doing training on Schoology, we should have first taught teachers how to move all their digital files from their computer and local network drives to their GoogleDrive accounts. A good suggestion, I thought, since linking to online documents in Schoology makes a lot of sense.
As educators move files from local drives to cloud-based application, are they moving a lot of cruft as well? And does all that gunk make finding and using the good stuff more difficult.
Any suggestions for identifying and managing the cruft in your virtual life?
Reader Comments (4)
One thing I do to eliminate cruft (a term I picked up from programmer friends) is always start from scratch when setting up a new device. For example, when I get a new iPhone next month, I won't restore from a backup of the current one. Instead I'll add apps and files as I need them. I doubt more than 1/3 of what I have now will show up on the new device and I won't miss any of the other 2/3.
Thanks for the mention, Scott.
Hi Tim,
Good suggestion. Backing stuff including programs to the cloud make it difficult to reduce all this clutter.
I was surprised to hear of your retirement. I wish you all the best and hope you will keep writing for those of us still rowing in the galley​.
All the best,
Doug
Hi Doug,
This as a very timely post for me, as we are starting to plan for our switch from FirstClass (are you familiar with this beast?) to Google Email (we are a GAFE district but have not yet switched to their email). FirstClass is particularly tricky because it also serves as document storage and has collaborative workspaces called Conferences. People have been saving collaboratively-created documents in these conferences for years. We need to figure out the best way to transfer these documents into the Google environment, and certainly a good first step would be to have people delete the "cruft". Thanks as always for the inspiration!
Alicia
Hi Alicia,
Good luck with your switch. I have now moved two districts from Outlook to Gmail. It's survivable!
Doug