It was about a year ago now that my computer crashed on me. I was fortunate that I didn't need to buy a new computer and am still using the same one that suits me fine (at least for the time being), but I spent hours on the telephone with someone in India reinstalling everything. It was a real waste of time.
I was also fortunate that all of my important files with the exception of a few e-mails were backed up. Funny thing is that I have referred to very few of those important files in the time since, which gets me thinking about how we hang onto things thinking that they will be useful in the future.
Experts in the organizing industry say we really only use 20% of the stuff we own 80% of the time. So rather than buying another bin or putting up an elaborate system to store the 80% that we don't use, perhaps we should take a cold hard look at that 80% and see what we can share with others less fortunate.