Spring cleaning tips for your digital life
Ah, spring. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and it can only mean one thing: it’s spring cleaning time.
There’s something about the transition from the cold dark days of winter to the warm bright ones of spring that make everyone want to clean up and clean out. For me, it’s my closet. With almost every season, I find myself opening up my cluttered closet and purging all of the cold-weather clothes I didn’t wear over the last few months.
Have you ever thought about using this cleaning motivation and applying it to your digital life? Let’s be honest. Every night and day, we’re bombarded with emails, notifications, tweets, texts, and buzzes coming from our phones, tablets, and computers. If we’re going to clean out, where to even start?
To get you going, here are three areas to focus on.
Photos
For most of us, the majority of storage on our devices is taken up by photos and videos. And who can blame you? That selfie you took the other day is fabulous, but it does take up space on your phone.
The solution? Have your device automatically sync your photos with other apps and services.
Dropbox is my tried and true. It’s really simple and has a “camera uploads” folder that automatically uploads photos from my phone. Google Photos has syncing features that work very similarly to Dropbox, but has additional editing capabilities. For many users, the convenience of having the service built into Google’s other suite of products makes it a no-brainer — and it’s included for no extra fee. Shoebox also has desktop and mobile apps for syncing photos and creating slideshows. All three apps are available on iOS, Android, and desktop.
Sometimes, just thinking about opening my email stresses me out. Anytime you show interest in a loyalty program or buy something new, you’re signed up to get emails and they can easily clog your inbox. It can get exhausting.
But doesn’t hitting inbox zero feel so good?
Virtually all email providers have folder options. Use them! Start with three folders of what seems to take up the most space, and when you find emails that don’t fit into those categories, go from there and create new categories for the emails you want to save. Then, dedicate part of one day a week (usually Sunday for me) to look through all of the emails, and sort them. Voila! It’s Monday morning and there are no new emails.
I decided to give a couple of new email apps a shot as well, just to see if I could find a better system. Here’s what I found:
- Unibox was love at first tap! Emails are sorted by sender, so it has more of a messaging app feel than email, making it easy to find threads again later. Once you’ve dealt with an email, you can have it either stay in your inbox or automatically be archived. Inbox zero becomes no problem. Multiple email accounts are supported in UniboxPro, available for $4.99.
- MailMag sorts and organizes emails to make them look more like flipping through a magazine. This is great for people who prefer a visual take on their email experience.
- Spark offers support for multiple email accounts, is super customizable, and has a great feature where you can send quick canned replies. It also syncs seamlessly with Apple Watch.
Social Media
This is the biggest one for me. I’m a hopeless social media addict. Yet, even I know the Social Media world can get toxic. People are angry and outraged about everything and anything. Heck, I’ve been there myself!
I’ve yet to find a good website or app to help clean out who I’m following, so this is one task you need to do manually. Here are a few things I think about as I go through who I follow:
- Do they follow me back?
- Do I know this person?
- Do I remember why I followed them in the first place?
- Does what this person/account posts improve what I’m consuming day to day?
If you can answer no to two or more of these questions, it’s time to unfollow or unfriend. It’s fine if you follow someone and they don’t follow you back, but if you don’t remember who they are, or every single time they post you want to cringe, it’s time to let them go.
We all have enough stress. If someone is truly bothering you on social media, or you don’t enjoy what they post, there is nothing wrong with unfollowing or unfriending. You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life!
There you have it: three areas to help you clean up your digital life this spring. Sometimes, cleaning out can be exhausting and tedious. But when you open your social media feeds, or notice your phone isn’t buzzing with as many notifications, it’ll all be worth it.
