Leaving a Trail

I was working in my Google Docs, creating a couple new writings. Then I remember a couple other items I had written before and decided to look for them.

Instead of seaching I just started scrolling down. And down...

I saw things I haven't seen in a while.

It made me think about a topic I seem to think about a lot. Having access to historical writings, notes, research, projects, communications, etc.

In short my stuff is all over the place. I have a few notable data stores such as: Those are the main areas I store my information, although it is kind of a half assed way. I just do it as I can. I have videos, images, and backups of my workstation on Amazon S3. I have communications in Gmail and Outlook....and all my ideas and refined documents in Google Docs and Notebook.

I just watched two documentaries on Netflix: Now I am in no way comparing my life to theirs, but they have this huge paper trail of letters, journals, books and more. They have this wonderful archive of information from their life to evaluate beyond.

Its just something I'd like to be able to evaluate later on in my life, and leave for my children to evaluate beyond.

The question is: How to you collect, store, and archive everything in your life?