5 Ways to De-clutter E-Clutter
Feeling overwhelmed by a digital avalanche? Between smartphones, tablets, computers, and wearable technology, these days it’s far too easy to become a hoarder of apps, emails, messages, contacts, music, files and photos. Luckily, there are simple ways to de-clutter your e-clutter to make life more organized, efficient, and stress-free.
Follow these 5 tips for a digital spring cleaning:
- Smartphones
Unused apps, random contacts, and hourly alerts are major space and time wasters. Set up your home screen based on most accessed contacts and apps. Delete old texts and unnecessary contacts on a more frequent basis, and organize contacts in simple categories like “Family,” “Friends” and “Business.” Clear out pictures and videos by uploading to a hard drive or cloud storage.
- Computer files and programs
Over time, your computer’s hard drive and desktop can become a digital junk drawer. Schedule time once a month to uninstall unused programs, delete unnecessary files, and empty the recycle bin. Adopt a simple and consistent file folder and naming system to better manage ongoing, completed, and archived materials.
Tackle a messy inbox by unsubscribing to unnecessary alerts, daily tips, mass emails and newsletters. Choose one account for personal emails, and another account for work and business purposes. Delete or file anything that has been in the inbox for more than a month, and save any important messages in a separate folder.
- Social media
It’s ok to defriend and unfollow on a regular basis, enforce strict privacy settings, and ask family and friends to stop sending spam. Instead of sorting through unimportant status updates, tweets, posts, pins and shares, you’ll have more direct access to meaningful information, people and interaction.
- Media
Don’t forget about music, games, TV shows, and movies! Delete previously viewed recordings, streamline playlists, and consolidate files using organizational apps for faster and easier access to what you actually want to play, watch, and listen to. Move storage to the cloud to free up space on your devices.