Keeping digital clutter can make us feel just as stressed and overwhelmed as a messy room or desk does.
When spring rolls around, many of us are inspired to do some deep cleaning. This may include getting rid of clutter around the house, washing the windows, and freshening up our living spaces.
But what about our online spaces? Just like our homes, our digital lives can become untidy. Many of us are overrun with emails, photos, apps, and notifications, making us feel stressed, distracted, and vulnerable to security issues.
With a few simple steps, you can clean up your digital life by giving your devices and online accounts a good scrub that can also improve your mental well-being.
Why Should I Do a Digital Declutter?
Many adults spend several hours a day online, whether it’s working on a laptop or scrolling through their phone. We are constantly getting emails and texts, opening new tabs, taking photos, and more. All of this digital chaos can start to affect our well-being. According to emerging research, holding on to digital clutter can make us feel just as stressed and overwhelmed just as a messy room or desk does. In addition, we may be leaving our personal information exposed to potential security issues.
By decluttering your digital life, you may reap these benefits:
- Improving your devices’ speed and performance along with the services you use
- Protecting yourself from security hazards, such as identity theft, ransomware, malware, and data breaches
- Reducing stress, distraction, and mental “clutter”
- Improving your productivity and focus
What Steps Can I Take to Declutter?
These tips include ways to strengthen your security online, as well as tips to make your online spaces more manageable.
- Strengthen your passwords. Nowadays you have to create a password to do just about anything online. It can be overwhelming to remember them all, so many of us start using the same one for multiple accounts or very basic ones we can remember. To start your digital cleaning, review your passwords. Get rid of old, unsecured passwords and replace them with unique, strong passwords for each account. Change your passwords on a regular basis. Consider using a password manager to help you. A password manager is software that stores and encrypts your passwords. Explore online options to see if a password manager may help you stay more organized.
- Enable multifactor authentication. Multifactor authentication is a security feature that requires two types of credentials when logging into an account, similar to getting a one-time code sent to your phone. It’s a quick and easy way to build another layer of protection onto your accounts. Use it for email, bank and credit card accounts, social media, and more.
- Review your privacy and security settings. Check to see what information your apps have access to that isn’t relevant to the services they’re offering. For example, many apps have access to your location, contacts, photos, microphone, and more unless you change your settings. Go through your phone, review your settings, and ensure you’re only giving out your intended data.
- Update your software. You shouldn’t ignore software updates because they usually include important security improvements for your browsers, laptops, phones, and other devices. Set updates to install automatically and you’ll improve your speed, functionality, and online safety.
- Get rid of accounts and apps you don’t use. Uninstalling unused apps from your phone not only declutters your home screen, but also makes sure your data isn’t shared with apps you don’t use. Maybe you have fitness apps you aren’t using anymore, or clothing store apps you only downloaded for a one-time discount. Find the ones you don’t use, login, remove your personal information, and delete them. You can still visit these sites through a browser when you need to.
- Scrub your social media accounts. Review your privacy and security settings and make sure they’re set to your standards, delete any old photos and posts that no longer represent who you are, update friend and contact lists, unfollow anybody that isn’t adding anything to your life, and start clean!
- Tackle your inbox. Many of us have thousands of messages when we open our email. Start unsubscribing from email lists and newsletters you’re no longer interested in. Archive or delete old emails and create folders to better manage your inbox.
- Clean up your phone. Do you have contacts you can delete? What about old voicemails or text message threads? Look at what is stored on your phone and eliminate the waste! For many of us, photos are another huge clutter zone. Consider uploading them to a cloud storage, print some for your walls, or make an album.
- Dispose of your old electronics. Your old tech probably contains a lot of personal information, but it doesn’t need to sit around collecting dust. Wipe your information, do a factory reset, and remove any memory cards or hard drives. Then head to a recycling location that takes electronics. The Federal Trade Commission offers tips on how to safely dispose of your computer.
- Consider a digital break. You may find that taking a digital break, such as an hour each night before bed, a few hours each day, or for a week, may be beneficial to your well-being and decrease some of the stress and anxiety that can come from too much screen time. Check out Healthy Homefront’s article Is It Time for a Digital Detox? to see if you may benefit from a break.
- Do ongoing maintenance. After you’ve done a good spring cleaning, consider doing something small each week to continue managing your digital space. Establish good habits like deleting emails and texts, closing open tabs, and organizing pictures on a regular basis.
Make sure you tackle more than your windows and baseboards this spring. Make a point to clean up your digital space as well!