ADHD glossary · Family perspectives
Archive: state what you are keeping outside the active work
For this household exercise, an archive is a collection of material people choose to retain outside their current working set. The important decisions are what to keep, why it is being kept, and how someone will recognize it as an earlier record. No particular app's “Archive” button is described here.
General education and practical perspectives. Editorial standards.
This arrangement is different from a bookmark pointing to a destination and from a backup intended as a recovery copy. It is also more specific than grouping files in a folder: the archive label explains that the selected material is retained but is not the current plan.
Worked example: last year's sidewalk-art afternoon
A fictional household is planning another afternoon of sidewalk drawings with neighbors. They still have a supplies list, a sketch of the space, and a note about who offered to bring chalk for the previous event.
They want the old supplies list as a starting reference. They do not want last year's offers to appear as this year's commitments. They label the collection “Previous sidewalk-art afternoon - reference only” and write a short note explaining its purpose. The new plan names its own date and asks people again what they can offer.
One neighbor's personal message is not needed to understand the supplies list. The household leaves it out of this proposed reference collection. A child chooses whether to include their own drawing of the old layout. Keeping useful planning context does not require keeping every contribution together.
Write an archive cover note
Collection and event or project:
What period this material describes:
Why we want to keep it:
Exactly which items are included:
What is deliberately not included:
Current plan, if there is one, and where to find it:
Who has agreed to maintain this collection:
When we will reconsider whether it is still wanted:
Questions that remain before anything is moved or removed:
Use the note as a discussion aid. This page gives no instruction to delete records, change another person's files, or rely on any retention period. If material carries an outside requirement, keep that question separate and verify it through the responsible source before taking action.
Mark the boundary with current work
Suppose someone opens the old list and sees “Lee will bring chalk.” The cover note should make the time context plain. The statement describes the earlier event; it is not a request to Lee now. Copy only the questions you want to reconsider into the new plan, then confirm any new commitments.
A partner maintaining the collection can ask others to identify what they still use. A child need not become responsible for sorting adult correspondence. A grandparent can ask for the one old layout they want to discuss rather than receiving a whole collection of unrelated notes.
Reconsider the reason for keeping it
At the chosen review point, ask whether the original reason still applies. “We have not decided” is a legitimate state; it is different from an instruction to destroy anything. An archive name supplies no assurance about preservation, security, retrieval, or recovery. Our example is a voluntary distinction between retained reference material and the work people are doing now.
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Found a factual error or something unclear? Use the contact route on our Trust page. Read our research method for the evidence approach.