Baggage comes in several forms: there is the excess variety which frustrates you at the airport when you have to decide between quantity and quality. The second is emotional in nature and not as easy to shift. It comprises tangible reminders of things we want to retain or forget.

Those of us who hoard mementos from the past are advised to store precious memories in the form of photographs on a compact disc or hard drive, not in cardboard boxes. Think of all the space you can save in your house with this de-cluttering method.

Being able to store thousands of memories in a folder where you can look at them at will without having to worry about curling edges or loss of colour is a huge relief.

There are many of us, the majority women perhaps, who collect stuff such as stacks of old photographs, recipe pages torn out of magazines with every intention of actually trying out all those delicious dishes when one has the time (which means never) and newspaper articles that struck a chord once and were carefully cut out and kept away.

We are often asked what we plan to do with all the stuff that we have collected over the years. Are they there merely as mute reminders of the past or seeds for action in the future? Our answer is invariably the same: We don't know what we will do when the collection becomes unmanageable but all we know is that we can't let go.

Now we can preserve even more with the help of modern technology. In his book Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, Viktor Mayer-Schonberger rightly points out that it is so much easier now to store every bit of information as concisely as possible. The only difference is that a digital collection is not tactile. No more lazy afternoons spent poring over old scrapbooks trying to recall what was so special about this one or that and why we kept them all these years.

But where do we draw the line? When do we say "enough, no more, 'tis not so sweet now as it was before" (with apologies to my old friend Will)?

Boon or curse?

Mayer-Schonberger goes on to say that a comprehensive memory is as much a curse as a boon. He cites the example of a woman who, since the age of 11, has remembered the events of every day in agonising detail.

I can certainly see his point here. How many of us are haunted by memories we would rather forget? It could be the premature death of a loved one, or the agony of watching a debilitating illness laying low someone whom we hold dear.

These are painful experiences which we push to the back of our mind only for them to surface at moments when we least expect it. However, for the most part, these are pushed into the subconscious, allowing us to go through the routine of everyday life without being paralysed by pain.

Mayer-Schonberger suggests making forgetting a little bit easier so that we are not burdened with the weight of all that we remember. This can be done simply by using expiration dates. This exercise will however require a lot of thought as we must be sure that we are ready to let go completely by a certain date. It's like saying "I don't want to live beyond a certain age'. As that D-day nears, you change gear and prolong the desired life span.

So, there are tangible and intangible memories. Some are as simple as letters or photographs or diaries. And then there are the mental images transfixed in memory, searing our conscience and refusing to be stilled.