How I Declutter My Digital Life | Minimalism
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This video is sponsored by Notion.
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Having the digital areas of my life organized and decluttered
is as important to me as having the physical areas of my life.
But it's been quite some time since I touched on this subject.
Which is interesting because it is one of my favorite things to talk about
and sort of find new strategies for.
Strategies in which I have several new ones I'd like to share today
that have been helping me.
Here are some tips for decluttering your digital life.
But first, if you're new to my channel, thank you for stopping by.
Here we talk about minimalism, frugal living, tech, and things of that nature.
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Let's get started.
Consolidate platforms.
And with this, I specifically mean things like social media and email addresses.
The amount of redundancy that plagued my digital life for years
gives me a headache to even think about.
At one point, I had an account on almost all social media apps
for no reason other than to just have them.
It was when I decided where I wanted to be more intentional
and actually put my time into
that I actually started to enjoy some of these platforms.
And obviously, YouTube is where I decided to stay
if we're counting this as social media.
And there's something I recently read called communication fatigue.
And I could sum it up by saying with fewer platforms,
you consolidate where people can reach you,
making it easier to stay on top of messages.
And it leaves me not having to worry about endless notifications
across several apps wondering if I ever replied or not.
Invest in an external hard drive.
And this is one item I genuinely believe most people would find value in.
I'll get into the contents of what I actually keep on this hard drive
later in the video,
but just having one single place where I store and backup
my photos and videos throughout the years,
that alone makes it worth having.
Along with some of those documents I want to have digital copies of.
This extremely small item has been able to house hundreds,
even thousands of memories,
all while keeping my phone and computer clutter free.
And aside from organizing clutter,
this has a few more benefits
like having offline access to important documents
and of course, cutting out the need for cloud storage in some cases.
I should mention other owners of this exact hard drive
had mentioned they've had issues with this one.
I personally haven't yet,
but if you're looking for one, I thought that might be worth mentioning.
Probably get a different one than this.
A while ago, I made a video showing how I use Notion to organize my everyday life.
And recently, Notion has launched the new Notion AI.
Once I tried it out for myself
and saw how it put my entire grocery budget into a chart in a matter of seconds,
I knew this is how I would be doing it from now on.
But what's highly impressive is that it takes information
that you already have in your Notion pages
and gives you a highly personalized response.
For example, for a chart based on my financial goals,
I have a detailed personalized plan in seconds
built on the information I've already put in.
I could see this having like a million use cases
for people that work in management, planning,
or even script writing or copywriting.
Notion AI has the capabilities of an AI chatbot,
writing assistant, and universal search.
You could already get started with Notion completely for free
and unlock the new Notion AI for only $10 a month
to make your work and personal life much more streamlined.
I'll have a link for this in the description box if you're interested.
Thanks again to Notion for sponsoring this video.
Have folders for documents to keep.
And this is something that's so easy to do,
takes up little digital storage,
and gives me a lot of peace of mind.
I'm occasionally flooded with physical documents I'm usually sure I won't need,
but in the case I do need them,
they would be best to have.
Things like receipts, proof of payment,
and other forms like that.
I decided to make a dedicated folder that either has copies of PDF files
or pictures of these copies I took with my phone
and keep them in this folder on my hard drive.
If you have your own business or some type of job
that requires you to keep invoices or anything similar like that,
this is a simple way to keep these backed up
and easily reference them in the future if you need to.
Multitask intentionally.
I wanted to talk about this because I recall
getting a lot of comments in the past
of people literally having dozens upon dozens of tabs open simultaneously.
And I feel like this point is a little relevant to addressing that.
I used to have the habit myself of keeping several tabs or windows open,
and while it might seem overly simple,
something I started doing is limiting myself to
one or two windows or tabs open at a time.
It's not to say that there's a correct number of windows or tabs one should have open,
but what I noticed is that this helps me
stay focused on the task at hand,
and I complete whatever I have to in those tabs or windows until completion.
And I just don't open anything else until those are finished,
close them, and then I move on to the next one.
Also, on a quick side note,
I don't know if Mac OS has this built in yet.
I know Windows does,
but years ago I got this app called Magnet
that quickly helps Windows snap into place and adjust their size automatically.
Again, PC users, I'm aware this is built into the OS.
Back up photos consciously.
Backing up my photos from my phone is no doubt a chore
and can quickly clutter up anywhere I decide to keep them stored.
Before I ever back up my photos to an external drive,
I try to just change my mindset when it comes to
taking out my phone and taking a picture in the first place.
Meaning I just try to be a little bit more selective
of what warrants me pulling out my phone and snapping a picture.
Because it doesn't sound like that big of a deal,
but eventually I'm going to have to deal with it
whether deleting it or moving it to a backup.
And just by making this simple adjustment,
I never feel like I'm overwhelmed with thousands of photos
of random things just on my phone.
When the time does come to back up the photos
from my phone to my external drive,
I just keep everything organized year by year
and import the photos to the folder of whatever year it is.
And I've been doing this since about 2015.
Create a weekly digital maintenance routine.
To do this weekly might seem like slight overkill,
but not if you're someone who finds yourself
struggling to keep your digital areas organized
like I am occasionally.
I wouldn't say I have an actual day of the week
that I commit to this,
but I most definitely find myself setting some time aside
to delete old texts, close tabs,
and remove anything I'm not using from my phone
or other digital areas.
And while it might not seem that significant at all,
it's definitely nice to have this sort of reset
on a weekly basis to have a clean slate
that's a little less distracting or disorganized.
For my laptop specifically,
I like to go through my downloads folder and desktop
to see if there's anything that I don't need anymore,
as well as update to get rid of any notifications.
And this routine I set for myself
isn't just limited to deleting things.
It's typically where I'll make sure I'm caught up
on responding to emails
or follow up on those things
that I haven't quite finished yet.
Having this weekly digital maintenance routine
has helped me stay on top of keeping my devices organized
and for the most part clutter free
if it gets too out of control.
So keep in mind,
these are just a few of the things that I do
to keep my digital areas organized.
And I hope at the very least,
you found a few of them useful
to maybe implement into your own routines.
Anyways, as always,
I appreciate the time you spend here
and I appreciate you watching.
If you did like this video
and you like this type of content,
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and I'll see you next time.