Digital Decluttering

Hey, there! What's up? It's your girl Kylie! And todayyyyyy - we're doing a decluttering video!!

😂Okay, whoops, sorry for the bad humor. I think this is the kind of style that I'll be trying out for a bit for my upcoming blog posts though. Like kind of an inner-monologue-y, not that grammatically correct, just my random stream-of-consciousness kind of vibe:) We'll see how this goes haha, I definitely won't be restricting myself to one particular writing style.

But on this fine Tuesday evening, I realize that I have a couple of hours before I plan on going to bed, my headspace has been kind of a mess lately, I've really wanted to write new blog posts but then I overthink and I'm a bit perfectionist when it comes to my blog sometimes... so what I've decided to do is just make myself sit down and write whatever comes to my mind.

Okay that's not entirely accurate. I do plan to have a method to my madness today😂 What I wanted to do for the next couple of hours is to DECLUTTER MY DIGITAL SPACE. We all know about these minimalist, Marie Kondo, time-lapse type clean-up videos that have been going all over Youtube; people seem to find it super satisfying to watch other people clean up.

But personally, what I have found is that my physical working space has been somewhat neat and tidy lately. Like everything has a place, everything has a purpose. But why is my mental headspace still a mess?

And then I took a look at my laptop, and the answer was right in front of my face:

Look how many tabs!!! and this was already like after I decluttered a bit. And also I use different Chrome accounts for personal and for uni-work related stuff - this was just in my personal Chrome account. I probably had like a total of 40-50 tabs open across all of my different Chrome accounts.

Then I open my Gmail - 22 unread emails

Uni email - 67 unread emails

I turn on my phone - 156 whatsapp messages, 12 instagram messages, 6 messenger messages...

Haha honestly no wonder I have this weird cloud in the back of my head that is constantly lingering around. It's the weight of all these numbers!

And in this upcoming academic year I think it would be more important than ever to keep your digital space clean! Since pretty much every we're doing is going to be online. I know that if I don't clean up, every time I turn on my phone or my laptop, it'll just be these white numbers in red bubbles that are screaming at me.

So.

With that being said.

I am going to start my digital decluttering!

And as I go along I will write down some of my top tips for keeping your digital space clean:)

1. UNSUBSCRIBEEEEEEEEE

We all fall victim to those email subscription thingies, either online newsletters that seem really cool, motivational daily emails, news sources, fashion websites...

Like I'm subscribed to the Telegraph email newsletter but I have never read a single one of them. You know when you sign up for an online account and they're like, "let us give you updates twice a week about news in the world", and you're like "hmm sure, this is the perfect opportunity for me to start being socially aware. I'm going to click this check box, and suddenly I will be this person who stays up-to-date with everything that is going on all around the world :D👍"

Now, obviously I'm not saying this because I have anything against the Telegraph or against people who are socially aware. I think being socially aware is extremely important. But I'd just like to challenge you to think about the circumstances under which you ticked that check box "I would like to receive updates twice a week". Can you honestly not deny that you clicked that check box on a whim? Becoming socially aware doesn't work like that. And I knowww, I know that when your cursor hovers over the "UNSUBSCRIBE" button, that in your head you will be like, "Tomorrow! Starting tomorrow I will stay up-to-date with whatever this automated email system throws at me. It's still not too late for me!" And then you do this like several times over the span of 5 months but you still don't get into the habit of reading that.

The same goes for like fashion websites that shopped at one time and they promise to give you a 10% discount if you sign up to their weekly emails.

My point is, an email newsletter that serves no purpose in your life, that does not spark joy, is just like that kind-of-cute-if-only-I-had-the-right-accessories-to-wear-with-it sweater that is just hanging around in the back of your closet. THROW IT OUT.

2. Take notes

I don't know how it works for you, but I usually keep a chrome tab open because a part of my brain knows that something is unfinished regarding that task.

So what I am going to try to do right now, is to go through all of my tabs, and close them. If there is anything at all that I know I need to remember, I will be writing that onto a separate piece of note paper.

I guess you could think of this as like those vacuum compressing bag things that people use for clothes. Some things are important and you will need them later in the future. But there are often ways that you can keep the essence of these things and store them more wisely. like compressing a massive down jacket into a third of its original size.

3. Make use of bookmarks!

I have no idea why I often prefer to just leave a dozen tabs open than to place them into a nice bookmarked folder in my Chrome. They actually make life so much easier.

This could be like those organizing bins that you put in your closet to make everything nice and organized! It allows you to separate the things that you would like to keep and have them laid out in a nice order so that you can see everything at a glance, rather than just have everything thrown into a pile in "the Chair" (Okay I did not plan to have so many metaphors 😂 but we're just going to roll with it)

And just like organizing bins, there is kind of like a technique to it. Of course, it's not that you can't just throw everything into the bookmarks bar, but there is a feature called a "folder" that will help you a lot if you utilize it correctly. That way you can know exactly where everything is when you need it.

4. Don't keep duplicates

"So like there was this really cute scarf, and they had it in like 5 different colors. And I didn't know which one I like best... so I bought them all!😁"
Has this ever been you lol. I know it's never been me in terms of fashion, but I definitely do this with my pictures. It's just so easy to snap like 20 pictures of exactly the same thing and keep them all on your phone. And in your head you are just going to convince yourself that there is something different about every picture, and then maybe, just maybe 20 years into the future you're gonna look back and think that this one was cuter than that one, so you can't afford to delete this one now.

When I do this with my dance videos, it's way worse. Because this takes up sooooooooo much storage space.

Do yourself a favor and just delete the unneeded ones.

5. Make it a Habit

Just like regular decluttering, doing it once every 10 years doesn't really help you that much. Once you have cleared out your space, the next most helpful thing to do is to develop a system, to know where you want to keep everything. Make sure that you have a clear system that easy to use and most understandable to you, so that you can "put everything back to where they belong".

This is a more long term thing to work on and I'm still not too sure how I would plan to do that lol. Maybe this calls for an update/follow-up post once I've got that figured out.

And that concludes today's episode of declutter with me! Honestly I'm not saying all of the above because I have my life together haha. This is also me talking to myself and trying to convince myself to build better habits:)

I hope you've enjoyed reading this so far and hopefully I will make another post very soon!