Clutter exists in virtually every part of our lives from our over-cramped closets to our finances to our computers, phones, and tablets. We know the value of eliminating our physical clutter and work hard to keep a handle on it. But have you thought about the need to clean up your digital clutter?
While one of the greatest things about today’s technology is that it can be a great tool to help keep the physical clutter at bay, it seems as if in an effort to remove our physical clutter we’ve increased our digital clutter.
After all, it’s pretty easy to take all those old CDs and upload them to your iTunes account. Our photos are pretty much already digital and we take our old photos and scan them to our computer. These days we steam for video games and DVDs. Our books, newspapers, and magazines are stored conveniently on our e-readers. Even most of our bills and banking are now done online.
But here’s the thing, clutter is clutter! Whether it’s physical possessions or an overflowing inbox, they can both create a feeling of stress and overwhelm.
Clean-Up Your Digital Clutter
Clean-Up Your Digital ClutterMuch like getting our physical clutter under control gives you that happy feeling of when you can easily locate exactly what you’re looking for, the same is true with digital clutter. Getting your digital clutter under control makes you actually feel in control and happy knowing exactly where you need to go to locate that document you saved months ago?
So let’s get started tackling these 8 areas today!
1. Your computer Desktop
Don’t underestimate the value of a clean and clear desktop. It may have been a while since you’ve seen one!
Most of us tend to save documents and images we want to find quickly on our desktops. It doesn’t take long before it’s all cluttered with little space. When this happens it is well past time to start decluttering and removing all those files.
If you’re there with me, the first thing to do is delete old programs and apps you no longer use. Don’t just remove the shortcuts from your desktop, delete the program entirely from your hard drive.
Next, create files and categories to keep the remaining items on your desktop nice and organized. This will make it so much easier to find what you need quickly.
Moritz Fine Designs has these awesome desktop organizational backgrounds. There are several designs to choose from and they are FREE! It’s what I personally use to organize my own desktop. You can download your own copy here.
2. Bookmarks
How many bookmarks do you currently have saved? Take a look, you might be surprised at how quickly you’ve accumulated quite a few. If you no longer need it it’s time to delete it! Look at those bookmarks that you no longer use or are not updated regularly and delete them.
By cleaning up your bookmarks you’ll be able to actually find what you need much quicker. And isn’t that the reason you bookmarked the page in the first place?
3. Email
3. EmailI have a love-hate relationship with email. On the one hand, I love the ease of email and the fact that I can follow through with things at a time that works best for me.
On the other hand, I have had more than my fair share of opt in’s to newsletters that provide no real benefit past the initially promised freebie, you know the ones I’m talking about.
But here’s the thing about your inbox, you can truly monitor what goes in there. If something is no longer helpful to you, unsubscribe. Unsubscribing is the quickest way to clean up your digital clutter in your inbox!
As to those emails you need to hang on to you can still aim to keep a zero inbox. The simplest way to do this is to create separate folders and categories for your emails. For emails that I need to hold on to, I place them in specific folders that I’ve named descriptively to allow me to easily find the items.
What’s left in my inbox, now acts as my basic to-do list, everything else gets deleted.
4. Old Contacts
Speaking of deleting items, why are you hanging on to old contacts you know you’re never going to, well, contact. Clean up your digital clutter by deleting anyone you no longer regularly communicate with.
5. Documents
Be honest, do you really need to keep all those files in your Documents Folder? I’m guessing you can delete like 50% of those files and not even miss them.
If you have a ton of old documents that you no longer need, it’s time to start deleting them.
To start with, look and see if you have multiple versions of the same document. There is no reason to keep all versions, keep the most recent or final version, and delete the rest.
For those files that you do need to keep, create separate folders for the various categories of documents. Group like items together either by file type (finances, home improvement, etc.,) or by the person or by year.
Now make sure that your file names make sense so that you readily know what the file contains. I like to use a brief description and the date for my files, (resume 4618). When I see this file name I instantly know it’s a copy of a resume that was prepared on April 6, 2018.
It really doesn’t matter how you categorize, you just want to make sure you have a solid system that will allow you to quickly locate a document by visually looking at your folders.
Now that you’ve created all your folders for each of your groupings, place all similar items into their corresponding folder, now it’s all nice and organized!
6. Photos
6. PhotosDo yourself a favor here and don’t keep bad photos! Photos are one of those things that quickly accumulate. So I want to encourage you when decluttering photos the first thing to do is go through and delete any photos or videos that are:
Blurry
Duplicate
Poor quality or lighting
No longer meaningful to you
Now, that you’ve decluttered the unnecessary, create folders for your photos similar to the way you created folders for your documents.
I have used folders that organize my photos based on the year, month, and event. They’ve all worked equally well. The point is to be able to find a photo you may be looking for quickly.
Don’t be afraid to experiment until you find a system that works best for you!
7. Media
This consists of all of your music, games, and movie files.
I don’t know why it is, but for some reason, it’s harder to delete the digital copies of music and movies than it is to declutter hard copy CDs and DVDs.
I’ll be honest, I find it VERY hard to get rid of any music files I have, even if I haven’t listened to it for a while I find that I may want to go back and listen at a later time.
But I am a big music fan. Movies and video games, on the other hand, are easy for me to get rid of when I know it’s something I will probably never use again.
So if you have media folders you know that you’re not likely to use go ahead and delete them. Decluttering these files will make it so much easier to find the media files you regularly use.
8. Social Media
8. Social MediaHow many Facebook groups do you belong to? Are they still providing value to you? If not unsubscribe from them.
The same is true for business pages you have liked or followed. If they are not providing value to your life unfollow.
What about friends you barely know that you are following? If they aren’t a regular part of your life unfollow them. You don’t have to unfriend, you can simply unfollow and they’ll never know. This way your feed is not being cluttered with posts you have no interest in.
Digital clutter is very distracting and a great time waster when you can’t easily find things you are looking for.
Declutter those digital items no longer serving you. Get to work making labels and folders for those items you need to hang onto.
As you clean up your digital clutter you will be amazed at all the ways it helps you regain your focus. Just like removing physical clutter, removing digital clutter clears space to allow you to spend time on what adds value to life.
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