Organizing Your Digital Life
The main areas of organizing that we focus on are the home, the office and habits that tidy up our lives. With technological advances overtaking our world some of us might need to take a moment to consider digital organization. Between smart phones, email, and social media it is very easy to feel overly connected. Consider these five tips if your digital life is overwhelming your real one.
Set Time Limits
If you are finding yourself spending hours a week checking your email or social media, it might be time to set time limits. Go to your phone settings and click “Screen Time”. From there select the option “App Limits”. Here you will be able to add time restrictions to individual apps. So, if you are addicted to Instagram set a daily limit for thirty minutes. This way you can increase your productivity and focus on the tasks that really matter.
Tidy-Up Your Apps
If you really think about it, we’re all carrying tiny computers at all times. While this is an incredible thing it can also be a time waster. Decide what you need when you are out and about throughout your day. Place those apps on your home page and all other “fun” apps in a separate folder or page. To combat temptation, don’t make them easily viewable.
Unsubscribe From Emails
This is a game changer. Did you know that sometimes just walking into a store can automatically connect you to their email list? The amount of promotional emails we receive a day can be astronomical. Make sure to manually remove some stores from the list every month or so. The stress added with a constant high email count can be a lot over time. Making sure that the emails you need are easily found.
Follow Intentionally
The list of people we follow on social media apps can get out of hand fast. With the new landscape of digital friendship emerging it can be hard to determine who to follow and who to let go. At some point we should assess whether the people we follow are adding value to our lives or if they are taking it away. Pressing unfollow should not be so controversial. Taking the first step to remove or mute accounts can seem hard but pays off in a big way.
Unplug
This tip is simple, turn off your phone and put it away! Just engaging in real life for a while can help us gain perspective and focus on the important things in life.
I hope this article inspires you to step away and practice a bit of digital minimalism. Even if you just implement one suggestion it can make a big difference.
