A few times a year, I get an urge to purge. Whether it’s spring cleaning or taking a moment to archive last year’s emails, I find it incredibly gratifying to dump (or sometimes simply put away) stuff I don’t need. There’s a whole lot of hippie rhetoric about how clutter-free environments lead to clarity of mind, and I’m not necessarily saying it works for everyone, nor is it guaranteed to improve your productivity, but I sure do feel less stressed and more able to focus when the junk is gone.
Most of us learn from a young age to clean our rooms, tidy our desks, donate or throw out items that we don’t need or want anymore, and put away our physical stuff. As adults But many of us never learned how to do the same thing with our digital material. It’s no surprise we never learned. Who would have taught us? There haven’t yet been enough generations to figure out how to do it and teach the next batch of youngsters.
If you enjoy a good purge and have a messy digital life, here are five places to start:
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Files on your computer desktop
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Messages in your email inbox
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Photos on your phone
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Apps on your phone
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Your open browser tabs
Here’s some advice on how to do it.
1. Clean Up Your Desktop
Sometimes, we stick on a file on the computer desktop, so it will be in our line of sight and we’ll remember it. Then, we repeat this behavior over and over, and the principle defeats itself. How can you see and remember a file among a messy heap of others, all crowding the now desktop?
View Desktop Files in List View
The easiest way to clean up the desktop is to start by viewing your files in a list, rather than looking at the graphical representation of the desktop itself. In other words, open a Finder window in macOS or File Explorer in Windows. This view makes it easier to see which files are ready to be deleted.
Make a Few Folders
You don’t have to trash all your files to clean up your desktop. Instead, make a few folders with names like IN PROGRESS and PHOTOS to help you sort through what you have.
A huge tip in this step is to not think too deeply about what is the correct classification. Make it easy. Folder for PDFs, Photos, and Documents would do. Folders called Work, Personal, Fun, and Old are fine, too. Keep it simple.
The method I use is to sort files by year. I have one folder for every year, and within those folders, I have whatever subfolders make sense. So I have a 2020 folder and within it are subfolders called 2020 PHOTOS, 2020 TAXES, and so forth. Putting files into folders is similar to archiving them. They’re out of sight, but I can find them if I need them.
Sort Your Files
Now, using the list view to your advantage, sort your files into the folders that make sense. With the list view, you can see and sort by the file type, date it was created or last edited, and size. Turn on the preview option for images, PDFs, and other files if you need to glance at them before making a decision.
Don’t leave your folders on the desktop. They’ll only create more visual clutter. Tuck them out of view but somewhere you’ll remember, such as within the My Documents folder or maybe in a file-syncing folder, like the main Dropbox folder.
2. Empty Your Email Inbox
Ready to trash everything in your email inbox? No? You’re not alone. Many people hesitate to throw away emails because they’re afraid of missing a million-dollar opportunity or an important message. Ok, so don’t! Here’s a method to clear your inbox without throwing away any messages.
Here we can use the same concept that we used to clear the desktop. Sweep those old emails out of sight by moving them into folders.
Create Year Folders
Create a new folder (or in Gmail, a label) and name them for the current year and each year in the recent past, for example, 2020, 2019, and 2018. The reason I like year folders is they remove the need to make additional decisions. You don’t have to think about what kind of labels you need or which emails belong where. They practically sort themselves.
Bulk-Move Messages
Now, simply move messages en masse into the appropriate folder, based on the date of the message. Depending on what email program you have, you might be able to move them by creating a rule. Otherwise, just sort your inbox by date, select all the messages in a certain year, and drag them into the new folder.
Develop New Inbox Habits
Now that your inbox is de-abominated, it’s an excellent time to get a handle on email so you don’t end up in a bad spot again. If you take a little bit of time to set up some new rules for managing email and stick with them until they become habits, you might find that email doesn’t have to be an unmanageable mess.
3. Transfer Photos From Your Phone
Nothing says purge like removing photos and videos from your phone. Nearly everyone hangs onto photos and videos on their phone. Clearing them out frees up space on your phone, so you can take new photos.
PCMag has a detailed article on how to move photos off an iPhone (or any smartphone), which details a couple of options:
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Use a cloud storage service, such as iCloud, Dropbox, or OneDrive (this is usually the quickest method).
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Transfer photos directly to a computer (using a cable).
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Transfer photos wirelessly to a computer (using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth).
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Physically remove a memory card (not all phones have this option).
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Share images to a social media account or email.
You don’t have to remove every photo, of course. I recommend keeping a copy (not the original, but a copy) of maybe your favorite dozen images, including any selfies you use for online profile pictures. Having those at hand is highly convenient.
4. Get Rid of Unused Apps
Do you download apps, check them out, and then forget to remove them from your phone? Dumping unused apps is yet one more way you can start purging the digital clutter from your life, as well as free up more space on your phone.
Before you remove apps willy-nilly, start by backing up your phone; see our instructions for how to back up an iPhone or how to back up an Android phone. Having a backup allows you to restore not only an app, but also whatever data was inside that app. In many cases, your data will be in a cloud account, too, and they will restore whenever you reinstall the app, but it’s a good idea to back up regardless.
To choose which apps to remove, start on the screen that’s farthest from your home screen. The reason? Your home screen probably has apps you use all the time, whereas the screen that’s farthest likely has apps you don’t.
To delete an iPhone app (or an iPad app, for that matter), press on or press and hold the app. Choose Delete App or wait until it jiggles, then tap the X that appears. For Android apps, press and hold the app icon until you see options, then drag it over the Uninstall option.
iOS has an option that lets you offload apps automatically when you don’t use them frequently. This particular setting keeps the data you generated by using the apps, such as the details of your runs in a running app, but it removes the app itself and the memory required to host it. If you want to try this option, it’s located at: Settings > General > iPhone Storage > Offload Unused Apps.
5. Close Your Browser Tabs
Are you a tab hoarder? Do you leave dozens of tabs open in your browser, sure that any day now you’re going to read all those articles or watch those videos? The problem with tab hoarding is that it prevents you from cleaning out the Internet cache, which you should absolutely do from time to time.
There are many solutions for managing excessive browser tabs. The easiest one, however, is to bookmark all your open tabs. It’s generally an option right in your browser. All your tabs will be saved so you can open them again any time, but you can close them for now, dump the cache, and start over with a fresh browsing session.
Make a Fresh Start
Few people have good habits when it comes to cleaning up their digital junk, but that’s to be expected. Digital clutter is relatively new. We don’t yet have a lot of established rules of hygiene. Try cleaning up your desktop, email account, phone, and web browser. It can be as rewarding as cleaning out your physical junk.
