Our digital devices are many things to us: work necessities, conduits of information and entertainment — and sources of major stress. One of the more maddening aspects of owning computers and smartphones is how they generate clutter; step away from the computer to get a snack, and you’ve got 30 new emails by the time you return. Every time you look at your phone, you see apps you haven’t used in ages. When you prepare to take a photo, you wonder how soon your phone will sound the alert that you lack storage space for more pictures.
Digital clutter isn’t just an annoyance: Like physical clutter, it can generate anxiety and distress. Excess digital detritus can also bog down your devices, making them run sluggishly and causing additional frustration.
Amanda Jefferson, a digital decluttering and productivity coach and cohost of the podcast Good Enough-ish, is here to help. Trained in popular Marie Kondo methods for uncluttering physical spaces, she has some simple suggestions for bringing order — and even joy — to your jam-packed digital world.
Stress Sources
You’re overwhelmed. The clutter can seem so vast that you feel defeated before you begin. “It never seems to end,” says Jefferson. “As soon as you feel like you’re caught up with email, for example, it just starts coming again. When you’re going to declutter a basement, there’s a finite number of items. But digital clutter is a constant barrage, a black hole.”
You don’t know where to start. Given this overwhelm, it’s natural to have no idea what to prioritize. There’s the email inundation, the memory-eating apps, all the photos — and those are just the most obvious offenders.
You don’t know how to proceed once you’ve begun. Once you’ve started the decluttering process, there are other questions: Should you declutter every digital space, from music to photos to documents to apps? Are there areas of clutter you don’t even know about? And how much clutter is too much?
You worry about making the wrong decisions. What if you wind up needing something you jettison in your decluttering efforts?
You use the cloud as a procrastination tool. Jefferson calls the cloud “a never-ending basement, an almost-infinite storage unit that costs 99 cents a month.” If you have iCloud, Google Drive, or a similar service, it can be too easy to conclude that addressing the clutter is not a priority.
You lack an organizational strategy. Getting rid of unnecessary clutter is one thing; putting what you retain in order is quite another. How will you set things up to keep chaos at bay?
You worry that you won’t be able to keep up the clutter-clearing habit. It can be dispiriting to realize that decluttering isn’t a one-and-done; it needs to be an ongoing task, one that may feel too daunting.
You don’t know how technology can help you. “We walk around with these expensive supercomputers in our hands and our bags,” says Jefferson, “and so many of us don’t know very much about what they can do, including help us declutter by providing options and information.”
Success Strategies
1) Do a decluttering “brain dump.”
This is when you sit down with a pen and paper and write down the issues you have with digital clutter, Jefferson says. “You need to clear out your emails, you need to figure out your passwords, whatever. Just list it all out and sketch out the priorities.”
2) Assess the reality of the situation.
“Is your Gmail yelling at you that you’re running out of storage? Does your phone keep saying you can’t take any more photos because you have to delete some?” she asks. Look into what’s behind those prompts to see what really needs your attention.
3) Consider your values.
A look at your digital storage can reveal whether it aligns with your needs and values. Do you really listen to music enough to justify all the songs you’ve saved?
In Marie Kondo style, Jefferson recommends asking yourself whether what you are keeping is giving you joy or just represents an obligation. “You should read that article. You should keep getting that worthy newsletter. But what newsletters do you look forward to and love reading? They’re the keepers.”
4) Create a specific plan.
Jefferson suggests choosing a maximum of 10 things that are top priority, the things that are causing you the most stress. “These are the things you’ll tackle first,” she says. “Decide the specific action that you’ll take on that priority. For example, instead of ‘Organize all our photos,’ write down ‘Get a photo-organizing app on my phone.’ Instead of ‘Declutter my email,’ write ‘Make a folder for each kid’s school emails.’ Then look at your schedule for the next two weeks and decide exactly when you’ll take each specific step. Block out that time and keep that commitment. Repeat until you’re ready to move on to the next set of priorities.”
5) Proceed patiently.
“I like the old adage ‘How do you eat an elephant? A little at a time,’” she says. “It’s all about dividing, splitting decluttering up into bite-sized pieces.”
6) Use the cloud wisely.
Although Jefferson notes that the cloud or other external storage source can be “a never-ending basement,” it’s also your best means of ensuring you won’t lose what is, or may be, valuable. “You can save everything [worthwhile] — from your most important papers, like tax returns and leases, to personal writings and recipes — to a cloud service. Just be sure to create clearly labeled folders so that you can find things easily when you want to retrieve them.”
7) Take advantage of organizational tools and resources that your devices offer.
Our devices themselves can help with decluttering. “For example, there’s a way in your email to click a whole bunch of promotional messages all at once and mark them to be deleted on arrival so you don’t have to go through the trouble of unsubscribing from them,” Jefferson says. Using a function to sort emails by size and subject can make organization and decluttering easier.
You can also set up an auto-delete function to get rid of old messages and hide phone apps that you don’t use regularly. “Digital decluttering is about less; it’s about fewer emails and files and photos, but it’s also about becoming really savvy in learning how to do things,” she adds.
The point is to learn about these resources, with the help of a professional like Jefferson or on your own with Google. “Google ‘How do I set up an auto-delete for X email system?’ Talk to Google as if you’re asking a human — be clear in your questions.”
8) Set a schedule and use “body doubling” to help you declutter regularly.
“There are people who say, ‘I’m going to work out,’ and then they go into their living room and work out,” says Jefferson. “I’m the type of person who needs to go to a class or have some sort of appointment, or I’m not showing up.”
Body-doubling — a productivity technique that involves working on a project or task in the presence of another person — can make it easier to declutter on a regular basis, she points out. The practice is often used by people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to help increase motivation and focus.
“I actually founded a club called the Get It Done Club. It’s an online coworking group where we set a timer for 50 minutes and everybody works on whatever they need to work on — like unsubscribing from emails.”
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