How do you feel about your digital clutter? By this I mean things like apps, files, photos on your computer, phone or tablet. Do you know what you have, where it is, and whether it’s safe?
Chances are that you are overwhelmed, and you’re not alone.
Today I wanted to share a great infographic that I was sent recently that helps to decipher what you need to look at, how long to keep things, how often to declutter them, and where to keep them for safe keeping.
I hope it helps make your digital life a little easier, I know I learnt a few things from it!
Source: eReplacementParts.com
This was an interesting read for me, and it was nice to know that there are some things on it that I do already, such as: –
- We use Dropbox to backup everything on our computer, and my hubby has set up our phones so that any photos we take get automatically updated to Dropbox as well. This is SO much easier and means we are much less likely to lose anything should we lose or damage our phones.
- Email – I like to be on top of email as I work for myself – so I work through my inbox on a daily basis, and try and purge every few months.
- Unsubscribing regularly from emails that I don’t read anymore – They fill my inbox and take time to go through every day, so I try and do a few a week to keep on top of things.
TIP – When you subscribe to newsletters, use a separate email account for this, so that they don’t fill up your main account.
- Getting rid of old paperwork – I wrote this post on that exact topic a while ago and it’s been very popular!
What I really could do with focusing on that came back to mind after reading this infographic (these are some upcoming projects so watch this space!) are the following: –
- Clearing my mobile phone regularly of old texts, apps and files. This would streamline life so much…
- Regularly changing passwords online. I don’t do this often enough, and it just makes sense to be safe online. If you’re worried about how to remember your passwords, then take a look at this post all about using a password manager as this is a great option if you want to start using secure that’s easy to use.
- I am also looking at going paperless as much as possible at home, as this makes sense in so many ways – not least to dramatically reduce the mountain of paper clutter we like everyone else deals with daily/weekly/monthly.
I also want to look at apps more going forward, as I am starting to use them more and more for different aspects of life – and I can see that they are growing in popularity too, so it’s something that I want to feature more on this site.
We are all heading into more and more of a digital world, after all!
Looking after your digital clutter is easy really, and boils down to 3 things.
#1 – Keep only what you truly need to keep
#2 – Make sure it’s safe and secure and backed up
#3 – Be able to find it when you need it.
After all, if any of these three aren’t in place, you may as well not have things stored digitally at all. It would be like having a bath full of pennies and trying to find the one that is dated with a specific year – almost impossible and not a task I want to have to do any time soon!