Organizing Your Digital Life

Similar to how we need to organize our physical spaces to be more productive and to reduce stress, our digital world need maintenance as well.

Remove the clutter – this is not just about stuff. Declutter your life.

We all spend a lot of time on our computers, laptops and definitely our phones.

If you are not one of those who are naturally skilled in organization and meticulous in your day to day life – then if you are anything like me, your electronic world starts to look like a junk drawer.

Your desktop can get littered with files and with thousands of apps at our fingertips, we can get buried in a hodgepodge of icons scattered across our phone screens.

Find an organizational system that works for you.

Phone

• Alphabetical is the simplest.
• Sort into folders by use is great. But be careful and ensure that these titles are clear. The default Utilities and Productivity is meaningless and will make it more difficult to keep up with as you add new apps.
• Themed rows or pages is another good way to go.
• How often you use an app is also a natural way to organize your apps. Keeping those you use least often on later pages.

Don’t forget to check out the usage statistics for your apps. Undoubtable there will be some that you just don’t use. Consider removing these as they are wasting space, energy, and valuable real-estate on your screen.

Desktop/Laptop

• Get rid of duplicate files
• Create 3-5 main folders and then sub folders within those
• Do not keep files on your desktop. Put those 3-5 main folder links on your desktop.
• Erase your download folder
• Photos – this is an area you will need organize and probably deserves it’s own article on just photo management. Using a cloud service is a good way to go – it will reduce the footprint on your computer, is easier to organize, and is a good backup in case you have a system issue.

Same as with your phone. If you know you haven’t used a program in 6 months to a year, you can probably delete it.

You spend a lot of time in your electronic world, so it is best to put a little effort into getting organized.

It doesn’t have to be a daunting task. Take it in bite sized bits and make those adjustments. Every time you have to manually search for something on your phone or computer is wasted time and effort. And that is the one thing, you never get back.

Here is to a more organized year. Cheers.