Showerthought: the guy who told me to name my downloads folder 'junk' instead of 'stuff' actually tricked my brain into deleting things

He said at a coffee shop in Portland that calling it 'stuff' makes it sound important, but 'junk' triggers the same instinct as throwing away old mail, and after I tried it last month I cleared out 12GB of random PDFs and installer files I had been sitting on for years, has anyone else used a rename trick to fool their own hoarding habits?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona_carr261d ago

That "junk" vs "stuff" trick is genius. I did something similar with my photo library - renamed my "screenshots" folder to "clutter" and suddenly it felt way easier to mass delete old phone screenshots of memes and random web pages. Cleared out like 8 gigs in one sitting. It's wild how one word can trick your brain into treating files like actual trash instead of valuable data.

iris_schmidt1d ago

Clicked rename on my "Downloads" folder to "Digital Hoard" six months ago. @fiona_carr26 , that's exactly right about the word tricking your brain. I went from never deleting anything in there to clearing it out twice a week. It's like once the label sounds gross, the stuff inside feels easier to toss.

brooket431d ago

Hate to admit it but I did the same thing to my "Work Projects" folder. Renamed it to "Old Stuff" and suddenly it was way easier to sort through. Ended up deleting about 15 old drafts and half-finished spreadsheets I was holding onto for no reason. @fiona_carr26 really nailed it with that whole brain trick thing.