The 3 Percent Rule or What to Archive
Guidance for writers and creatives living a digital life
You’ve decided that you see the value in creating a digital archive of your work. To keep from becoming overwhelmed at the prospect, you need to make some decisions, separate the wheat from the chaff.
Deciding what has long-term value
For most organizations I’ve worked with, only between three percent and ten percent of the files they create have permanent archival value. I help them make decisions about which files rise to the level of a record and then document how each kind of record will be managed to the end of its useful life. Then I capture all that information in a retention schedule. (Have your eyes glazed over, yet?)
Why do companies do this dry, boring work? Because it mitigates risk, ensures business continuity, and identifies what deserves permanent preservation (aka archiving). Creating a retention schedule that documents these decisions can be a months-long project.
Take the short cut
Start by identifying what has value to you right now, today. If its essays published through other media outlets or on other platforms, start there. If it’s your Substack, start here. Begin with the last essay/article/story you published:
- Create a folder for the item, name it something simple, maybe give it a date
- 2025 Published Essays
- 2025 Substack Posts
- Save the published article as a PDF
- For emailed newsletters, make sure you’re sending it to yourself and print the email to a PDF
- Add the PDF to the folder along with the final version you submitted to the publication
- Add other relevant material to the folder
- PDF copy of the acceptance email or the contract if you signed one
- Final draft of the Word document
- Original image you included in the article, essay or post
Do this as part of your process every time you publish or when your work goes live on someone else’s website or platform. Once you’ve got the hang of it, keep going backward in time. Export, save in folders, organize your folder hierarchy in a way that makes sense to you.
Congratulations! That’s the beginning of your digital archive.
P.S. A word about email lists
Of course, you’ll want to export and save a copy of your email list from Substack or from whatever provider you use to send out your newsletter. This is more of a business continuity record than an archival one. If your provider goes dark, you can go back to your last email list and load them into your new platform.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
- Other people’s email addresses are considered personally identifiable information (PII). Email addresses don’t rise to the level of say a social security number or street address, but it is private information someone has entrusted to you.
- There are national statutes as well as state laws about how long you can store and use someone else’s personal data.
- Once you are no longer using that data (for example, if you win the lottery and retire to a beach in Bimini) be a good steward of your subscribers’ data and delete it.
- Export the list quarterly or once a month if you are adding a lot of new subscribers. I recommend keeping only the most recent list you exported. In theory, you could create a master list of all the people who have ever been a subscribed, but if they unsubscribed, they did so for a reason. If you keep sending them emails, they might very well get cranky.
Lecture over. Happy archiving!