The New Year is underway. Now is a good time to go through and organize your digital life, getting rid of digital clutter (you know, those old documents, unread inbox messages, Internet bookmarks and the like). Much like with your home and workspace, getting rid of digital clutter gives you a fresh start and keeps the possibility of digital retox (returning to one’s cluttered ways after detoxing) under control. Here, BlackEnterprise.com provides you with a few ways to declutter your digital life in 2014:
Social Media
- Are you on Facebook? How many people do engage with on the social networking site? Maybe defriending a few folks and unsubscribing from pages/ groups will help unclog your news feed.
- Twitter timelines are always filled with info/ conversation, but, if you follow too many accounts and timelines, the micro-blogging site becomes impossible to scroll through. Try unfollowing a few folks (like those who are too chatty, or mute them). If you still want to know what’s going on with several accounts at once, use twitter lists instead.
- If you’re one of the many who sign up for a social network and never actually use it, deactivate it. Save yourself the time and stress of maintaining them. You don’t have to be on every site; keep to a minimum what you choose to be on.
Digital Devices
- If you go through your phone and think “when’s the last time I talked to this person?”, or “who’s this?”, chances are it’s time to get rid of the contact. Systematically delete your unused contacts and make room for people you actually talk to and will want to in the future.
- Haven’t listened to voicemail in a while? Check your messages and clear them out now. There’s nothing worse than having a full voicemail box when someone important is trying to reach you, or if there’s an emergency.
- See any apps on your phone or tablet you’re not using? Why not get rid of them and free up some space. You can always re-load apps at a later date if you need them.
- If you have old text messages in your text queue from someone you rarely have contact with, it’s time to get rid of them. The iPhone’s MMS texts can take up a significant amount of room. (I once had 6 GB worth, yikes!)
Once you’ve done this with your digital device, back it up to your computer for safekeeping. Otherwise, in your next sync it will revert back to the form it was before you decluttered your device.
Computers/ Email
- Transfer some of the files on your computer to an external hard drive and get rid of duplicate files. Â More digital clutter on the main hard drive slows down the random-access memory (RAM), and we all know how annoying that is when we’re trying to work on a project.
- Take a good look at your email account.  How many unread emails do you have? I’ve heard horror stories of cluttered inboxes (20,000+ unread emails). Take the time to scale down the unread portion of your inbox. On Gmail, you can even separate the mail into tabs–”Primary,†“Social,†and “Promotions‖ so it doesn’t seem like such a daunting task.
As you move into the New Year, keep in mind that getting digital assets in order this year is an ongoing and a continual process. Hopefully, these few pointers will help you, or someone you know, be more successful in your pursuit to digitally unload.
If you have any tips, feel free to leave a note in the comments below.
Jarobin Guerra Gilbert, 27, is a digital marketing professional who focuses, among other interests, on the roles that international cultures and spoken languages play in tech-usage habits and digital media consumption. Gilbert has experience in search engine optimization (SEO) and social media analysis. The consummate traveler is a graduate of Hamilton College and is certified in digital media marketing from NYU-SCPS.