The problem with 'Later'

I have this habit of noting down links of interesting articles, saving survey reports and the likes for reference.

You know, the kinds which look interesting, ones you think will be of some use someday. I save them, and keep them aside, mostly to go through them ‘later’, in my free time.

I was organizing my hard drive contents yesterday, and came across this snippets folder.

It weighed in 183 MB.

183 MB of only word documents and pdfs.

To put it in word count terms, translates roughly into 375,000 words.

And I have no hope of going through all of them in this year, let alone in my ‘free time’.

Why does this happen? I could have glanced through the document then and there, in about five minutes, get what is required, and be done with it.

But I saved it. for 'Later'.

This ‘later’ mentality has turned my system into a big cluttered mess.

What next? get rid of the clutter. don't allow it to creep in again. 

If something is kept for later, more often than not, that ‘later’ never arrives.

Stay in the now. Whatever it is, it has to be done NOW.

You (or at least I) wouldn’t find the time later.

I am going to delete that ‘snippets’ folder now. and try not to allow clutter to enter my system (or life).