A few days ago, I ran out of space on my Dropbox account. It wasn't intentional but I received a pleasant reminder from the service to upgrade. While the service is exceptional (one can access files from any connected computer, iPad or iPhone), it's much too easy to simply throw all kinds of data up to it and then forget about it.

So, I looked at the upgrade options and felt that the 50gb at $99/year would make most sense. Then I wondered what I had “dropped” into that box. Most of the files were old – images I had shared with family or friends and were no longer needed. So, I went on a mission to simply prioritize and delete those large files one by one. Well, believe it or not, by the time I was done, I was back down to using only 1gb of space.

Did I now feel like I needed 50gb of space? Unlikely. So, that's how I saved myself $99.

All of this was inspired by a blog post and video that Musea posted called “29 Ways To Stay Creative.” Check it out.

29 WAYS TO STAY CREATIVE from TO-FU on Vimeo.

One of the ways the video suggests one can stay in the creative zone is to have a clutter free desktop. More easily said than done but when I also read that studies have shown how a cluttered lifestyle can increase blood pressure, I got to really thinking about how I can pare things down around me and in the cloud.

So, the first thing I did was to deal with my Dropbox account. If I had sprung for the $99 upgrade and had 50gb to play with, I would have likely just stuffed that server with more data files. Was my approach creative or just practical? I think a little bit of both.

By the way, if you don't have a free Drobox account already and want one, click here. That 2gb of space may just be all that you need.

How do you stay creative? Do you have a process that you can share with us that works for you? Is exorcising clutter your goal too? Share your comments below. I am attacking my email inbox next.