Data hoarding: A uniquely human challenge

Whether you work for an educational institution, a tech company, a dental office, a hedge fund, or even a big-box retailer, the truth remains: your organization probably has too much information on its hands. In 2025, our collective ability to accumulate information has far outpaced our willingness to let it go.

That’s a problem for the information managers of the world.  

We sat down to discuss the issue with Karen Stitt, a veteran information governance specialist with more than 15 years of experience across government agencies, private organizations, and consulting roles. It will come as no surprise to her fellow industry veterans that Karen says she’s encountered data hoarding in practically every organization she's worked with. And she has some thoughts on why we can't seem to hit delete.

From admin trainee to information management master

"I started in records as an admin trainee," Karen tells us. "Admin trainees always have records tacked onto their job at some point. It was a major part of my job, and I really enjoyed it because I always wanted to work in a library or museum role. I like the records and order."

That initial exposure evolved into a career, spanning state government agencies, the Catholic Diocese, and even the iconic Sydney Opera House, where she focused on the physical side of records management, handling everything from press clippings to archaeological discoveries.

"I worked at the Opera House for three years and that was really great. Lots of old records to play with there, and really interesting items," she remembers. In one unexpected project, she found herself elbow deep in mollusks. "I helped catalog, label, and transfer archaeological oyster shells that were discovered during excavation under the Opera House forecourt. They ended up being used in an exhibition at the Museum of Sydney.”

Although her role at The Opera House largely centered around the management of physical historical treasures, she found that the challenges that plague records and information teams ring true across both the physical and digital world. And one of the most common of all? The fear of disposal.  

The email black hole

In one of her previous roles, Karen says, email inboxes were a particularly difficult issue.  

"There was chaos," Karen says bluntly. "Directors wanted to hoard everything in their inboxes. One had thousands of emails and refused to delete anything, even after it had been transferred into the system."

Of course, this pattern repeats across organizations. Why? Well, Karen has a theory:

"They just trust email more. It's intuitive. If it's not moved, they feel like they know where it is," she explains. "In the recent past, mobile access to records systems was limited, but they could always access email, which just encouraged that bad habit."

The result is a digital labyrinth where valuable information gets buried under mountains of unnecessary data. It’s an all-too-common problem that's both widespread and persistent.

"I've never worked somewhere that had a perfect disposal program," Karen admits. "Electronic disposal especially is always neglected because it's invisible and doesn't create physical clutter." Out of sight, out of mind.

The psychology of "just in case"

So, what drives this compulsive digital collecting? According to Karen, it often boils down to fear and misunderstanding.

'There's a lot of "just in case" thinking — "better to have it than not."' she explains. At one   organization, Karen says ‘they wanted to retain everything "just in case" it might be useful again.'  

This common mentality creates a perfect storm when combined with limited resources, tight budgets, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the reasons for data governance.

In some cases, the pendulum swings too far in the other direction. Although keeping too much information creates risk to the organization, not keeping enough can also present challenges. In another previous role, Karen says that information management varied widely from department to department.  

Though the organization itself had policies and processes in place, it was up to the individual departments to execute the policies and procedures laid out. And in some cases, these directives were straight up ignored.  

"Some folks threw out too much too soon. Others kept everything, forever. So, when sensitive or controversial issues came up, they often couldn't find what they needed." Situations like these can spell disaster from a compliance or audit-readiness perspective.  

There’s no getting around it: neither approach — hoarding everything or purging indiscriminately — serves an organization well. It’s all about the balance.  

The hidden costs of data overload

For most people, it’s easier to understand the need for disposal when we can physically see the excess. But digital information can compound at a much faster rate, and storing that data doesn’t come cheap, despite the common misconception that it’s unlimited, plentiful, and easily affordable.  

In reality, costs add up quickly, and are compounded by other issues:  

• Shadow IT emerges: "At one organization after a restructure, they wouldn't allow improvements or new team sites in SharePoint," says Karen. "Eventually, shadow IT started happening." When official systems become unwieldy, employees create unauthorized workarounds.

• Information becomes unfindable: Excessive data makes it almost impossible to find critical records when needed. Employees can spend significant amounts of time on tracking it down, exacerbating existing resource strains.

• Ineffective automation: Even when automation is introduced, not everyone gets on board. One organization, Karen says, insisted on using generic retention classes, which made the automations in place effectively useless.  

• Compliance risks increase: Without proper disposal programs, organizations can't demonstrate compliance with retention policies that might apply to their region or industry.  

Finding balance: The art of information management

So, how do we solve this uniquely human challenge? Well, if you ask Karen, it’s about patience.  

"You need patience and tolerance," she advises. "You can't just force disposal, even when records hit their retention limit, people will always claim they need it for 'business needs.'"

Her approach focuses on collaboration rather than confrontation:

"I'd rather keep relationships and work collaboratively than alienate people with aggressive purging. It's like tidying a messy bookcase — you don't need the tattered magazines. It's about balance."

Her approach focuses on a few factors:

1. Understanding the emotional attachment: Recognize (and accept) that people feel safer keeping information than disposing of it.  

2. Education and awareness: Help colleagues understand the difference between valuable records and digital clutter.

3. Incremental improvements: Start with obvious opportunities for improvement (think redundant data) before tackling more complex or long-term disposal strategies.

4. Building trust in systems: Demonstrate that properly managed information is more accessible, not less.  

Making information governance seamless

For information managers like Karen, the ultimate goal is to make compliance effortless for end users, while ensuring important information is protected and easy to find.

When information governance becomes invisible to the average user, resistance quiets. When disposal happens systematically according to well-designed policies rather than individual whims, organizations can finally break free from the "keep everything forever" mentality. And with the right systems in place, information becomes a well-managed asset rather than an ever-expanding hoard: searchable, compliant, and genuinely useful when it’s needed.

Approaching information management is "about balance," Karen says. Finding that balance between keeping and discarding, between rigid enforcement and thoughtful collaboration, might just be the key to overcoming our collective obsession with hoarding data.  

For those of us drowning in digital clutter, perhaps it's time to ask: Do we really need all those old magazines on our digital bookshelf?