You can greatly simplify your life with some basic digital minimalism and decluttering. It’s easy to forget this area when you declutter and organise your life, but it’s just as important as the physical clutter you have in your life.
My top digital minimalism tips
- Set up a password bank. Digital security is important, but it can be hard to set up strong passwords and then remember them. The solution is a secure password bank. Imagine a secure library with all your passwords that you can easily access via your phone or computer and you only have to remember ONE password. It will take a little time to set up, but after I did this a few years ago I have never looked back. It saves so much time to easily find all your passwords and make sure they are secure.
- Clean out the phone apps you don’t use or need. I do this every few months, and it really helps keep my phone focused on the apps/tools I like. If you find that you miss it, you can always download it again!
- Keep on top of your email inbox. In my mind there are only 4 things to do with an email that comes into your world, and I use this same method both at work and for my private email.
a) Action: I leave a handful of emails in my inbox until they are actioned. After it’s actioned I either file it in a suitable folder or delete it.
b) Keep on file: File emails away in easy to find folders (for example: ‘insurance’, ‘travel’, ‘receipts’ etc). Only file things you need!
c) Delete: Some emails that come in, we can delete without actioning. If you find yourself often deleting something from a certain person/company I would however recommend that you…
d) Unsubscribe! As per global spam law every company that sends you something need to have an ‘unsubscribe’ or ‘update your email preferences’ function at the bottom of each email. If they don’t, you can always mark them as ‘spam’ and ensure they don’t come into you inbox in the first place. To unsubscribe is a great way to manage the amount of clutter coming into your world and means that you have fewer distractions to deal with.
In the video below I share a bit more about why I use this method to deal with digital clutter!