Two-minute archiving ritual after every delivery
Implement a two-minute archiving workflow triggered by 'I shipped an output,' consisting of filing the output in your single archive location with required metadata, treating archiving as the closing ritual of every delivery rather than a deferred task.
When This Fires
- Immediately after delivering any output (sending the email, publishing the article, submitting the report)
- When unfiled outputs accumulate because archiving keeps getting deferred
- When building the habit of maintaining an organized output archive
- Complements Five metadata fields for every archived output (five metadata fields) with the timing and workflow that makes metadata filing sustainable
Common Failure Mode
"I'll organize everything this weekend": deferring archiving into a batch session. The batch never happens, or happens once and isn't repeated. The archive has gaps for every period where the batch was skipped. Two minutes per output is sustainable indefinitely; a 2-hour batch every month is not.
The Protocol
(1) After shipping any output, immediately (before starting the next task) execute the archiving ritual. (2) The ritual: rename the file using Name archived files as [YYYY-MM] [Type]…'s naming convention. Add the five metadata fields (Five metadata fields for every archived output). Move the file to your single archive location. Total time: under 2 minutes. (3) If the archive location requires login, browser navigation, or complex filing, simplify it until the ritual fits in 2 minutes. The archive must be as easy to file into as it is to dump files on the desktop. (4) The trigger is "I just shipped" — not "I'll do it later." The same way you don't leave the house without locking the door, you don't close a delivery without archiving it. (5) If you discover you missed archiving an output days later, archive it now with whatever metadata you can remember. Imperfect archiving is infinitely better than no archiving.