31: Ctrl+Alt+Declutter: Taming the Digital Chaos
Let’s dive into the ever-growing problem of digital clutter. We all know how it feels to have our devices filled with files, photos, and apps that we hardly use, leading to a frustrating and overwhelming digital space. But fear not! We've got you covered with three game-changing tips to tame the digital chaos.
In this episode we talk about:
- What is Digital Clutter and Chaos?
- Some of the reasons behind digital clutter
- The consequences of digital clutter
- Digital Decluttering Tips so you don’t get overwhelmed
Mentioned in this Episode:
Episode 002: Digital Space vs. Physical Space Organizing
https://theorganizedflamingo.com/digital-space-vs-physical-space-organizing/
Episode 012: The Organized Flamingo turns 4: 7 Must-Have Digital Tools
https://theorganizedflamingo.com/12-the-organized-flamingo-turns-4-7-must-have-digital-tools/
Episode 013: Untangling the Web: How to Practice Good Digital Hygiene with Kate Hufnagel
https://theorganizedflamingo.com/13-untangling-the-web-how-to-practice-good-digital-hygiene/
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The Organized & Productive podcast is brought to you by The Organized Flamingo and hosted by Stephanie Y. Deininger! For those of you who love the thought of organizing & being more productive, but don’t know where to start or constantly up against hurdles that don’t let you advance the way you want to, this podcast is for you!
Review full show notes and resources at https://theorganizedflamingo.com/podcast
Connect with Stephanie
https://www.instagram.com/theorganizedflamingo/
Review the Transcript:
Welcome friends to another episode of the organized and productive Podcast. Today we are going down the digital organizing realm. So as you know, we talked both about physical organizing, but also digital organizing, and sometimes they're the same. And sometimes they're very different. And we actually have an entire episode that is devoted to the difference between digital organizing and physical organizing, and also how it's starting to overlap because in today's age, there's just so much overlap between physical things and digital things. But today's episode, we are specifically talking about digital clutter, and taming that digital chaos that is starting to accumulate. So let's get started. And let's head into the digital organizing realm. Welcome to the organized and productive podcast with organized Flamingo. I'm your host, Stephanie, a professional organizer and productivity expert, ready to explore the right organizing and productivity solutions for you. Yeah, well, then let's go.
So to get started, let's define what digital clutter is. And what it means here at the organized Flamingo. So we define digital clutter, as digital assets and things that are collected in abundance in your digital space. And digital space can be your digital apps on your phone, on your iPad, and other devices like those. Or it can also mean your conventional digital files that most of us are accustomed to like your maybe your Excel files, or doc files, pictures on your computer, desktop. And it can also mean on any whatever it is that you're accumulating in a digital world in the digital world or digital places. And because nowadays, we're starting to live like an even like video games. And other there's other ways that you can collect data. And you can store data in different digital assets, we just now call it digital in your digital space. And it can be at any of these places. So that is what digital clutter is when it just becomes when it's an abundance where it's just too much. And you're not even going back to it you're not removing those digital assets, because they're just accumulating the same way it would accumulate in your physical space. Part of this definition is also when it becomes so overwhelming that you no longer want to address it or you start to forget where things are. And actually, in essence, that really is what happens when when it comes to hoarding. And where it becomes too much clutter, not just like your average, you know, mess. This is when we're talking about where there's just so much that you actually it's either hindering your lifestyle, or you're always forgetting where things are, which is hindering your lifestyle. And that's when it becomes a problem.
And we'll talk a little bit more about hoarding and digital hoarding in another episode. But essentially, that's what it is. And so we're trying to avoid you get into that place with this episode. So I'm going to give you some tips on how to contain the digital clutter and the digital chaos that can start to become overwhelming. Let's talk about some of the reasons why digital clutter happens. And similar to physical things, it's, you know, it's the fear of losing the items. So you don't delete them, right? Like this is files, pictures. And this also includes downloads, maybe you downloaded like a you know, movie or song. And so now all of those files are starting to accumulate, and you don't want to delete them or remove them from your, from your devices because you fear that you may lose them forever. So similar to physical things. There's also the histology, same as physical things, right? Where maybe somebody sent you a note an email, as this is very predominant in emails where you don't want to delete the email that somebody sent you that it was very special. Or maybe they sent you a picture via email. And so now you are you saved the email, you save the pictures, and now you have like you have a double and maybe even triple if you download it in different devices. So there's a nostalgia feeling as well. And then the last is, again, similar to the physical clutter is that you feel like everything is valuable. You feel like if that everything that is coming your way that you're acquiring the information you're acquiring and saving is all very important. And so you don't want to delete it or remove it from your space because you think you know what the what if like, what if I need it later, or you are equally giving all items, the same amount of value points. And so now nothing is more important to keep or less important to keep. And so when you keep everything, and it just starts to accumulate.
So what happens when that becomes a problem? So you're not letting it go, right? You're not deleting it, you're not removing it from these items. So the consequences of digital clutter is that it decreases the device performance. So that's one, I talked about this in previous digital spaces, episodes, which I will link in the show notes. But I talked about this where we now have much easier access to bigger storage, digital storage, which is great, you know, you got the iCloud or cloud based type of storage, you've got much bigger storage solutions and disks. And maybe I'm dating myself when I say disks, but the storage that you can just plug it into your computers and whatnot. And so we have accessibility to that, and it's much more affordable. So then we think that we have an abundance or maybe never ending storage solutions in our computer in our devices. And that is not true, they all still have a max capacity. And so when you reach that in, you know, when you reach that, then your device starts to maybe go a little bit slower, it just really decreases the performance of your device. So that is one of the downsides of not cluttering your digital files. The other is the reduced productivity. Now, reduced productivity means in this case that you don't know where your files are. Now, I will say that we have gotten much better. We're like programmers and software developers and whatever, you know, whatnot, they've gotten much better with giving us easy search capability so that when you're looking for something, you can just quickly go into the search and look for a keyword or a tag or something that will identify it easily for you. So that's great. So I don't mean that type of productivity, I just mean, when you don't even know that you have some of this external storage, that you're not even accessing anymore. And maybe there was a file that was there, and now you're duplicating it, maybe there now there's like 10 different versions of it, because you forgot you even had that storage, you don't even log into it, you don't even connect it.
So that's what I mean about the reduced productivity. And then of course, you've got the emotional side, which is the increased stress that really affects your your body when you don't declutter, and this goes where your physical items to, but this is for your digital items, when you don't declutter you, I'm sure many of you will start your computer or you open up your phone, and then now you're just overwhelmed. And it's really stressful. When you see so many options, you know, you don't even know what what apps to go into what websites you're supposed to access for what it becomes really stressful. So, that is another reason why we definitely want to stay on top of our digital assets and things and just Declutter. Okay, so now that we've talked about what digital chaos and what digital clutter is, and why it's so important to tackle this subject and talk about it, let's talk about what we can do to make it better. So I've got some tips for you here that I think will get you started with starting to declutter this space, especially if you're not used to doing like a routine checkup in your digital space, this episode is gonna be great for you. For those of you who are, you know, you have a schedule every quarter every month, every week, you go in and delete, and you're so great about it, this episode will still help you give you some reminders as to you know, what is what are some things for you to check in on that maybe you have not thought of so this is a great episode just in general on how to avoid getting information overwhelm how to avoid the digital clutter, that is starting to happen very quickly in today's age. Okay, so tip number one is all about the just in case mindset, okay, so how to avoid or how to address the just in case mindset.
And this is all about the what if I need it for later. This is very predominant for all of you creators, who create a lot of video, maybe audio, and you keep these files, maybe for B footage. And this is very predominant in those industries. But this really is just for everyone, everyday users as well, whenever you get stuck in the well, what if I need it? Finish the sentence? What if what, just in case what? Finish the sentence and go back into your memory bank and see if that's actually ever happened? This exercise helps us finish fully the thought process and the fear that is behind why you don't remove things from your space. An example of this would be if I have an abundance of pictures, and I there's just way too many. Right? And here I am trying to declutter, and when I finally ready to declutter, I look at the pictures and I think Oh, but I know there's 10 of the same picture. But what if this picture what if I can crop this picture and I needed this really good moment from that person? Because this other Picture, everybody looks good. But in this one, this person looks great. What if I need a really good picture from this one person, so then I'll need this one too. But then this one has a really nice background, whereas this one didn't have the greatest color, but they're all similar. And so you continue to perpetuate this whole storyline, right?
So here is the, for me, that moment would be, what if I delete this, if I delete this, and I might regret not having a really good picture of this person? Okay, great, I finished the sentence. And now what, what's going to happen, if I don't have that picture, that really good picture of that person, I probably have 20, others of that same person saved somewhere else. So if that's the case, then I need to go find that one. And if that is the one that that person looks really good in, I'm just going to crop it. And that becomes that person's, you know, that person's like, good picture that I am now saving, but the rest can go. So finish the sentence, and have a solution for the sentence for the fear that you have. Sometimes when we finish the sentence, it's really out of I don't even know why, you know, I would the reason I'm keeping this is because I'm not sure. And that will start to help you be realistic about why it is that you're keeping things. The second tip that I would have is if you do have an abundant like a lot when I say abundance, I just mean like too much, too many, and it's starting to overwhelm you, or it's starting to like do some maybe on your computer and your device, it's starting to give you some errors, then go ahead and put it all into one external hard drive. And I actually talked about this in previous episodes as well. But this is the concept where you put everything in one place, and then declutter from there.
Because sometimes when they're in different folders, similar to physical things, when there are different places you don't even know what you have, you may actually have five different things that the same thing you know, you don't even realize it. So putting it all into one folder, one place is a really good starting point for you to then be able to sort by name by date by file type. This is where the digital decluttering, where you have a leg up from if from physical organizing, because nobody, you have to actually physically sort the things you know the physical things or hire someone like us like an organizer to do it for you. But in the digital world, there is really awesome tools that help you or the self that help you sort it immediately by different types by kind by size by date. So when you put all of your files into one place, maybe you know you have, you no longer need a certain type of file because they're corrupt. Maybe they're no that app or that software, you don't even have it anymore. So why keep it so you can sort by file type, delete all those and that gives you immediate decluttering access and accessibility. The third tip that I will give you is all about doing the one in one out. So something comes in a file comes in delete another one. And that is a really good way to just be to be able to maintain and have boundaries within your organization organizing spaces, this is really, this is really predominant and very helpful when it comes to your phone and devices and apps. So let's say you know, this is like a really good boundary section.
Like if you have 10 photo apps, and you know, maybe that's your boundary like I cannot have more than 10 If that is your profession, or that is what you like to do. Same thing with gaming's or games or email like you know, not to have more than a certain amount of type of apps, or maybe file so every time so for me, for instance, whenever I create when I download new files, you know, when you go into your computer and and downloads into the download folder, every time I bring one in, I go into my old download, you know the older ones and see what I can delete, that helps me stay on top of my files and making sure that I'm not creating or downloading more than what I am removing. I'm going to leave you with those three tips for now. But I will continue to series with digital clutter and giving you tips that will help you sustain that long term because our digital world is changing so fast. And now with the introduction of artificial intelligence, AI and just all of these other platforms that will help you manage and do things much quicker. I want to make sure that I give you the best and most current tips, organizing tips and decluttering tips. So what I'm going to do is this whole episode will this will actually be a series of episodes right where I just kind of come in every so often and talk about how to maintain your digital spaces so that they don't become overwhelming because as I have said before, out of sight is not always out of mind. And sometimes what you don't see is actually what's really affecting you Outside you know in your feelings in your in your way of life. So I'm going to make sure that we address sometimes the things that we don't often think about in one of those is our digital space. Signing off for now. I will be back with this series and until next week, happy organizing.
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