Spring. We all know this ’tis the season for love, hope, and new beginnings.
It’s also a time for some spring cleaning. Tidying up the closets and the cupboards, making sure that it’s out with the old and in with the new. And just like your home, your computers and other gadgets need to be spring cleaned out of the old so that the new can be stored.
For a lot of people, it could be easy to just select some files and folders, drag them all the way to the bin and get it over with while others might need to mull it over and reflect on the things they need to part with.
Pro tip: Letting go of old files and folders that have documents, photos, and videos can really get your gadgets up to speed and even improve performance.
If that’s not enough, mess means stress but you don’t have to be what we call a digital hoarder to start decluttering your digital space.
According to decluttering mogul Marie Kondo, uncluttered space transfers into our mental realms too because when we put things in order, we put our affairs and our past in order as well. It can leave us feeling relaxed, more energized, and even a little bit more confident. We’re able to see what we need and what we don’t — quite clearly, in fact.
So here’s how to Spring Clean your way into your digital life.
1. Go through your emails
We know you wouldn’t want to get rid of important or sentimental emails so it’s best to keep them in folders that would best suit you. This way, only the essential messages will be left in your inbox. While you’re at it, delete any emails that you no longer need and unsubscribe to newsletters that don’t interest you all that much anymore.
2. Organize your apps
Scroll through all the apps on your phone, and put them all in their respective folders. This way, it would be easier to find and keep track of all your apps while maintaining a cleaner home screen and once again, delete, delete, delete all the apps you’ve used the least or not at all.
3. Declutter your Social Media
If you struggle with keeping up with your social media accounts, take a day or so to read notifications and messages. Once you’ve gone past that, get ready to do some unfollowing and unfriending. We don’t realize it but oftentimes we follow or add people to our socials without thinking that we don’t really interact with them. So once in a while, don’t forget to take a look at your following or followers and see who and what you can live without.
4. Clean Out Your Computer
Way too much and way too often, we forget to clean out our computers. We download way too many videos, photos, and files and forget to place them in their rightful folders or worse, delete them after they’ve served their purpose. Time to take a good amount of time to really think about the things you need and what you don’t. It’ll look cleaner and you’ll have more storage!
5. Learn to Say No and Have a System
Now it’s a no-brainer that we all could get sucked into putting our emails up for a newsletter or a subscription – maybe the recipes were just calling out to you or they gave you a 10% off coupon in exchange, who knows! But we have to think about whether or not we need the extra clutter. It’s important to keep a system for digital decluttering AND be able to say no to unnecessary downloads, subscriptions, and newsletters to keep your digital life a little more organized.
Decluttering your digital life will help you feel less stressed when you turn on your computer and clock in every morning.
Just the items you require will be in front of you and you can sit at your laptop all day without being disturbed, and you can log off each night breathing better.
