Most businesses keep everything, not by decision but by default. Old customer enquiries, quotes for jobs that never happened, an ex-employee's mailbox nobody closed, a shared drive that has been accreting files since 2016. None of it feels urgent, so none of it gets touched, and the pile grows. It is worth remembering that you cannot lose, leak or be forced to hand over data you no longer hold.

There is a legal angle as well as a practical one. Data protection expects you to keep personal data only for as long as you actually need it. A drive full of decade-old customer details is not a harmless archive; it is a standing liability, and a bigger prize for anyone who gets in. The tidier you keep it, the less there is to go wrong.

The ex-staff mailbox deserves special mention because it is the classic one. It stays open “just in case”, it still receives mail, and it usually still holds live conversations and attachments. Every one of those is a door left ajar. Deciding what to forward, what to keep briefly, and then closing the account properly is a small job that removes a real risk.

The way to make this manageable is to do it in passes rather than all at once. Pick one category - old enquiries, say - agree how long you genuinely need to keep them, and delete what is past that. Then the drive. Then the mailboxes. A morning a quarter beats a heroic weekend that never happens.

The reward is quiet but real. Less to back up, less to secure, less to explain if anyone ever asks what you hold and why. A business that carries only what it needs is simply a smaller target, and an easier one to look after.