An archive grows through decisions about what seems worth another person’s future attention.

An archive is not a heap; it is a long series of judgements about strangers. Somebody decided that this letter mattered and that receipt did not, that this photograph would mean something to a person not yet born. Those choices are invisible in the result, which is why archives look neutral and never are. What survives is what somebody thought was worth keeping, and everything else quietly stopped existing.

If you keep anything for the future, be deliberate about the criterion rather than saving by default. Asking who you are keeping it for, and whether they would understand it without you, sharpens the decision considerably.