There’s no way you can talk about the digital era we are currently living in without talking about the digital clutter that comes with it. Internet now occupies a valuable space in our lives and with it, comes digital clutter in the form of thousands of mails, notifications, files and documents, apps, e-books, podcasts and text messages. To be honest, getting rid of physical clutter is way easier than getting rid of the digital clutter that is apparently piling up in your devices while you’re reading this.
While you may think that clearing digital clutter isn’t as important as clearing physical clutter, you can’t ignore the fact that digital clutter hampers your productivity and distracts you in more ways than you can imagine.
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In fact, digital clutter is more important to get rid of in the sense that its impact can’t be physically seen or felt. You can see a pile of paper clutter or a mountain of toys stacking up in the kids’ room and will feel the natural urge to get rid of it on a regular basis. But digital clutter is invisible to the bare eyes and hence, the extent of it can’t really be felt which often makes you overlook the need to declutter it.
Digital clutter builds up faster than physical clutter, and it’s important to stop believing that it’s not there only because it isn’t taking up any physical space. Some of the reasons why you must declutter your electronic devices are:
- Important files and mails (Insurance, work-related documents, etc.) can get lost in the huge pile of messages and mails that you receive on a daily basis, and it can be time consuming to sit and search for them.
- A clean, well-maintained and less chaotic device will prompt you to work harder by removing the confusion that comes with digital clutter.
- A messed-up Instagram feed filled with activities from people who you haven’t even met in the last 10 years isn’t going to add any value to your life.
- Your phone binging non-stop can actually distract you to the point that you won’t be able to get through the day without being disturbed.
So if you are looking to get rid of the digital clutter and working towards living your life as a digital minimalist, here’s what you can do:
1. Start With The Emails
Email inbox is the most cluttered space in any digital device as most communication, formal or informal, takes place via this mode. Although there’s no way you can look at that inbox without feeling overwhelmed, there’s definitely something you can do to deal with the email clutter:
- Unsubscribe from all the unnecessary marketing newsletters. This step alone will clean up your inbox by at least 50%. Alternatively, you can try keeping another mail ID for marketing offers and newsletters to separate it from your important mails.
- Go through your inbox and press delete on every mail that’s too unimportant to occupy a place in your digital device. I usually do this while watching TV or commuting in a bus/metro to save up on time. Be ruthless while deleting the mails and flag the ones that you need to tackle with later. Make sure that you sort through your inbox at least once a week.
- Set a timer while going through the inbox so that you don’t get caught up while reading the emails. Being a workaholic, I always make sure that I don’t check my inbox more than thrice a day while also setting a 10-minute timer every time I do it.
2. Move Towards The Picture Gallery
Another place that houses the most amount of clutter in your digital devices is the picture gallery. The fact that you have a 24×7 access to a good quality camera makes it susceptible to be used for taking many, many pictures in a day. And before you know it, your phone memory is so full that it won’t let you do anything on your device without throwing a reminder that ‘Your Storage Is Full’. Here are a few things that you can do to declutter that Gallery full of pictures:
- Delete photos from all the places, i.e. your phone, laptop, Google Drive, cloud storage or any other place before transferring them all to a single portable hard disk. The FOMO might compel you to keep as many backups as possible but make sure you don’t give in or you will never be able to declutter your digital devices.
- Delete all the duplicate photos or the ones that look similar (remember how we take a hundred photos in the same pose?). Your ‘Screenshots’ folder is another area that needs to be dealt with every now and then. Don’t forget to get rid of the photos and videos that you don’t like anymore, or the ones that don’t spark joy.
3. Remove The Unused Apps
Now you may not have realized it yet but unnecessary phone applications can make way for unnecessary clutter. Not only do apps take up storage and consume battery but also affect the performance of your device if you have tons of them installed. So do yourself a favour right now – go through your phone and uninstall all the apps that you haven’t used in a while. There’s also an option to put those apps on sleep that eat up a lot of battery in the background.
4. Organize The PDF Files And Scans
Off late, I happened to realize the number of old documents and files that had been sitting in my phone since college days. Being obvious that I didn’t need this academic content anymore, I went through all the files and scans and pressed ‘Delete’ on them.
For the files that were important and needed to be kept, I created folders to keep them nicely organized. I did the same on my laptop and on the hard disk that had all the backups for these documents.
5. Clean The Desktop
Your desktop is the first thing that catches your attention every time you switch on your laptop. Make sure that you clear your desktop of all the files and folders to prevent any kind of distraction. Keep the files organized in separate folders in the drives and make sure that you don’t clutter your Desktop.
6. Clear Up The Social Media Feeds
Social Media is a major part of our lives these days, and there’s no way you can perform a digital declutter without taking into consideration the need to keep your Instagram and Facebook feeds decluttered at all times. Press Unfollow/Unfriend without any fear of being judged, and remember that any person or information that isn’t adding value to your life is just not worth paying a look at.
Turn off the notifications to prevent any kind of distraction and activate only the ones that really matter.
7. Phone Book
The chances are high that you haven’t had a look at your Contact list for a while now. If that’s the case, open your Phone Book and delete all the contacts that you know will never be needed in future. Also, update the phone numbers and get rid of the duplicate entries.
Is there anything else that you do to cut down on digital clutter? Feel free to drop a comment below or write me at hello@theaestheticabode.com. I would love to hear your thoughts.