Digital Declutter: 5 Ways to Organize Your Phone
A Deeper De-Clutter
Pantry org? So three weeks ago. While there’s no doubt that control over your physical space clears up mental space, there’s another organizing opp hiding in plain sight that will give you more bang for your buck. We went to our favorite organizer Rachel Rosenthal to take our decluttering next-level. She quickly named the two spots we usually stay a good 6 feet from: our phones and our inboxes. So before you go back to ROYGBIVing canned goods, Rachel made your digital declutter easy like Sunday morning.
Good Call: Five Steps to a Cleaned-up Phone
TEXTS
Ask yourself: Do you need to answer it? Is there info there that you need to move elsewhere (such as a number, address, a date)? Or do you need to delete it?
PICTURES
Are they backed up somewhere? Should you put them in albums for easier access? Do you need to share them, or do you want to get some printed? Any you can delete?
NOTES & LISTS
What’s in them? Is there information that should be elsewhere (a number, an address, a date)? Do you reference the information where it is, or should that list of books or shows be on a wishlist? Again, can you delete them?
APPS
What’s up with your apps? Do they need an update? Grouping by category? Do you need your most frequently used apps promoted to your homescreen? If you can’t guess what the app does by looking at the icon, that’s a pretty good sign you can make it shake and say ‘bye.
CONTACTS
Got dupes? Or missing someone’s most up-to-date deets? Make a list and get updated. Someone no longer in your circle? Deleting’s allowed. And no judgment, but if you still have passwords in there, get them into a password keeper like Last Pass or Dashlane.
You’ve Got (way too much) mail
Don’t know about you, but our inboxes sometimes feel like the junk drawer of our digital lives—that very important thing banished under a bunch of pens that no longer work. But the digging and rereading is a real productivity killer.
Find the time. For some, reading and responding to emails could be a full-time day-and-night job. Try turning the deluge into a trickle by scheduling specific blocks of time to check email—rather than keeping that inbox always-on—so you can tackle other tasks without the constant ding of new email. If you work with other people, make sure you set up an alternate preferred communication (such as a call or text) when things need more immediate attention.
Take action. If you can make a quick decision on an email—what to do with it, including delete—you will avoid a lot of decision fatigue. Anything that can be done in two minutes should be.
Keep ‘em separated. Does an email require a response or does it just contain info for a task you need to do? If it’s actionable and you can answer in under two minutes, do it. If you can’t respond immediately, tell the sender “message received,” and you’ll be in touch shortly—then set a deadline to follow up. A good rule of thumb is to take care of emails within 48 hours. You may want to create a folder that includes emails with a more urgent need to act, so you have one spot to check to ensure they get a response.
Label it. Here’s one place where labels are more than okay. Once you’ve narrowed down emails that you need to keep, determine relevant categories and set up email folders. Whether you call them by project, client, child or anything else depends on how you recall them, so make your system your own. And keep in mind: 80% of what we put in a folder never gets looked at again—so be deliberate.
Unsubscribe. Oh what a beautiful feeling. Most emailers have made it pretty easy to say ta-ta for now, so before you delete another promotional email, just skip right down to the end and unsubscribe (it’s ok—the one item you may want someday is probably not a good reason to stay committed). Those newsletters that you are saving because you might read them down the road? Ask yourself if you’d pay $5 to read them. If the answer is no, they must go. (Here’s hoping The Verse remains a yes.)
