5 Ways To Do a Little Digital Decluttering Every Day

Lauren Rad is Myrth’s senior writer. From time to time, she’ll pop in with a personal blog post. Today, she’s sharing some of her quick digital declutter tricks that help cut down on the digital noise in her life.

We’re all drowning in too much digital stuff. We’ve got apps, emails, photos, social media, games, and a million other distractions all vying for our attention all day long, and most of it? It’s digital clutter.

And just like physical clutter, digital clutter can be stressful. It makes it harder to find and focus on the things we need. It pulls us off task.

Most of the digital decluttering pieces out on the internet focus on doing a large digital decluttering every now and then, but they don’t really cover maintenance cleaning. I get it, really. The big digital decluttering is so satisfying, and maintenance… well, it doesn’t quite give you the same rush, does it?

But it’s crucial to staying on top of your digital mess.

Over the last few years, I’ve made an increased effort to stay on top of my digital clutter and keep my online life under control. Here are some of the things I do most days to help manage the digital clutter.

Five Daily Digital Decluttering Tips

1. Clear out the junk/clutter in my inbox as often as possible.

   This might sound daunting, but Gmail filters make it easy. I just scan my promotions tab in Gmail, open the ones that look interesting, and then bulk delete everything that’s still unread when I’m done. No mess, no stress. Then I do the same with the updates tab. It cuts down on the clutter very quickly so I can focus on the emails that really matter.

2. Turn off notifications as soon as I install an app.

   I love trying out new apps, but it seems like they all want to ping and buzz at me as often as possible. No, thank you to that extra digital clutter. Whenever I install a new app, I instantly go to settings and turn off the notifications I don’t need.

3. Regularly cull my following lists on social media.

   This one can be a little time-consuming so I don’t do it every day, but I try to regularly take inventory of who I’m following, why, and whether their content is contributing positively to my life. If I don’t like the answer to any of those, I unfollow - an easy digital decluttering. 

4. Unsubscribe from junk email lists.

   It seems like the email lists start to pile up quickly, so I try to unsubscribe from a couple each day. That way, I can stay on top of things without it getting too overwhelming (except for the Myrth Newsletter of course!)

5. Automatically backup photos.

   I’ve had a Flickr Pro account since 2007, and I use it to store all of my photos. The app will automatically backup photos from my phone whenever I’m connected to WiFi, which means I don’t have to worry about deleting photos when my phone gets too crowded. It also means I can do quick, easy decluttering of my phone whenever I need to, because I know the photos are safely stored elsewhere.

 There are lots of different tricks and techniques to staying on top of digital clutter, but these five are relatively simple, easy, and quick. They make things much more manageable for me. Hope they help you, too.

Have you developed a digital decluttering system? What do you do, and how often do you do it? Leave us a comment!

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