With a new season among us, many of us have started spring cleaning and decluttering, or at least are working towards it, but whilst we are clearing out our homes, we are guilty of neglecting our digital life.
Most of us don’t think about digital decluttering, and it’s just as important as clearing out our closets or cupboards, after all we spend a lot of out time on our laptops and smartphones; emails, memorable photos, important dates in the calendar and notes we jot down to help us organize our lives!
Just like reorganizing our home and clearing around our cupboards and closets, digital decluttering works the same, except it’s digital instead of physical. The way you would clear out and organize your shoe cupboard is the way you should clear out and organize digitally.
Half our life is on our laptops and smartphones; emails, memorable photos, important dates in the calendar and notes we jot down to help us organize our lives, so it makes sense to want to clean things up every once in a while! Plus, there’s something so very satisfying about being organized and can do wonders for your mental health and wellbeing.
If you are wondering where to even start, we have got the perfect guide for you!
Start with your inbox…
Have you ever looked at your inbox and felt uneasy about how many emails you have? Well, you are not the first, and you won’t be the last. At some point or another, we have all let it get out of control, but all it takes is a bit of effort and a commitment to get on top of things! You can do this in one sitting or if you find this task overwhelming, take 30 minutes out of your day, every day, and you will be surprised how quickly you get through it!
Unsubscribe:
Most of you would probably agree that it’s emails we get when we have opted in to email marketing, sometimes without even realising, that clog up our inbox. We barely read these emails because they are just junk to us, yet they just pile up.
Decluttering your digital life means unsubscribing from these annoying emails so you keep your inbox neat!
Delete:
So, ‘delete’ is going to be a big theme throughout this blog, but seriously, there is something weirdly satisfying about going on a deleting spree and deleting all the crappy emails that you no longer need, so my only advise here is delete everything that you have not read in months or do not need! Trust me, once you get started on this task, you will not want to stop!
Create folders:
Creating folders is a game-changer for organising your inbox! If you need to keep certain emails, put them in the appropriate folder; they can be organised into folders such as work, receipts and hobbies.
Commit to keeping it organised:
When you have organised your emails, commit to not letting them get out of hand again, or it means that you will just have to spend more time trying to reorganise it again at a later date!
Move on to your apps
If you are like me, your phone is probably full of apps you barely use or never use at all! Not only does it waste your storage, but the digital clutter can be incredibly annoying to look at!
If you are like me, your phone is probably full of apps you barely use or never use at all! Not only does it waste your storage, but the digital clutter can be incredibly annoying to look at! Also, ensure you make sure delete apps that you don’t use!
You can also turn off notifications for certain apps, especially ones that you don’t pay attention to!
Tackle text and WhatsApp messages:
I used to be terrible for texts and WhatsApp messages, often having hundreds of text messages and chats in my phone that were open and not deleted and don’t get me started on the group chats I was in, yet no one had spoken in their for months!
Begin to clear out your texts and messages and remove yourself from group chats that no one ever speaks in, it’s just taking up space!
Photo albums
Is it just me or is your photo album full of pictures that you don’t even want? Perhaps it’s multiple selfies you have taken and forgot to delete the rest, or screenshots that you took that you no longer need!
Make time to review your photos and delete all the pictures you don’t want. This task may take a while, as most of us have thousands of pictures, but give yourself an hour or 30 minutes a day to go through this when it’s done!
Notes:
When I went through my notes, it was full of shopping lists from years ago, things I didn’t need any longer and notes that I jotted down that didn’t even make sense to me, so don’t forget to give it a clear out!
Don’t forget to declutter your social media!
TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and other social media sites are also included in your digital decluttering! How so you may ask, well it’s online and something most of us use every day!
Unfollow accounts:
Be mindful about the accounts that you follow, because as much as social media, is helpful and fun for us to use, it can impact on our mental health and make us feel as if we are not doing enough or we are not good enough. This problem could be solved by you unfollowing accounts that make you feel less than or any other ill feelings!
Clear out your inbox:
I bet you have many unread inboxes, or you can scroll for days with the number of open messages you have in your inbox. Delete them today, right now, or archive the ones that you want to save!
Deactivate or delete accounts you don’t use:
If you don’t use social media accounts, then be sure to delete them. If you do not want to delete them, or at least deactivate them and then if you change your mind in the future, you can always activate them again!
Check those book marks!
Surely, I am not the only one who bookmarks things intending to look back at them again, only to never do so. So, I end up with hundreds of bookmarked websites that I never go back to! If that’s the case for you, then you need to get rid of those damn bookmarks—just get rid of them all. I promise, you don’t need them!
Now get started on your files and documents:
When was the last time you went through your documents? Go through your Word or Google documents, creating folders for things you want to keep and get rid of the things you do not want to keep!
Make sure you give yourself a time frame!
Digital decluttering can be a big task and quite overwhelming, so it better to plan how you are going to through it, this way you will more than likely finish!
How you want to work through it is entirely your choice and depends on your schedule; plan to give yourself an hour a day per task or a few hours on the weekend until it’s complete. However you decide to do it, ensure you stick with it, I guarantee you will feel satisfied after you complete it!
