How To Clean Your Digital Life
In today’s day and age, digital space is available in abundance. This along with the need to capture everything happening in our lives, leads to piles of data accumulating on our devices and this clutter of data can often impact our mental well-being and productivity.
It is often understood that physical hoarding is a problematic behavior that can impact the mental well-being of a person. The problem of digital hoarding, however, is not always discussed, despite the fact that it has similar effects on individuals. Digital hoarding is similar to physical hoarding, as both conditions involve the accumulation of things, irrespective of their usage or value. It is driven by the need to save things, this could be articles to read later, sites to visit, dozens and dozens of photos we take at each party and outing. We relentlessly add more and more to the pile. We feel a certain stress associated with discarding things, most of the time we do not clear out our devices for fear of needing it in future. The build-up of this digital clutter impedes upon one’s mental health and their work life.
THE IMPACT OF DIGITAL CLUTTER
Confrontations with digital chaos, such as flooded inboxes, disorganized folders, constantly pinging notifications and more, can have negative effects on mental well-being in the long run. In particular, it could worsen symptoms of anxiety, by making us feel that we have no control over our lives.
Digital clutter could form because we keep adding new files or data without using the pre-existing material. This continuous surge of new data could make us feel overwhelmed and disorganized. The increasing clutter on our devices will make it difficult and time-consuming to search for a certain file or document that we need. This reduces our productivity at work and we may even end up putting off tasks by getting distracted by others
Digital clutter not only impacts our headspace but also our workspace. Storing large amounts of data slows down computers, and also puts the digital system of your work place in risk of cyberattacks and identity theft. Furthermore, the storing of unchecked digital waste means that more power and heat are produced, this will lead to an enlarged carbon footprint.
HOW TO DECLUTTER
There are three major digital spaces one must consider when beginning their digital clean-up:
The first digital space to begin decluttering is the computer desktop. Start by closing any running applications. Then create new folders, and drop all floating items to designated spaces. Clean out any duplicate photos, songs or videos, and uninstall any unused or outdated software. Lastly Backup on cloud or hard drive.
Secondly, take a look at your work applications, delete work applications that are no longer in use. The most commonly used application is email with the average person spending 3-6 hours a day in their inboxes hence, it is important to keep this space tidy. Move last year’s emails to a separate folder, unsubscribe from newsletters or subscriptions you no longer need and archive or delete unwanted emails.
Finally mobile phones and tablets also require decluttering. Go through phone contacts, photos, screenshots, apps, voicemails and texts to get rid of anything you no longer need. Delete old music libraries and podcasts you don’t plan on listening to or outdated notes and social media accounts you no longer use. Move mobile apps into folders, ideally the folders needed are: work, social media, health, music, productivity, photo and video, shopping and travel.
These actions will significantly improve your productivity and reduce stress. It will also diminish the chance of losing your accounts and information to accidents and scams. Using these practices daily can help you to keep a spotless digital life year-round.
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