“An internet user and his leisure time are soon parted.” – Author Unknown
A clean, uncluttered room breathes fresh energy into your home and life. In the same way, an uncluttered computer results in a more enjoyable, fresh, and productive experience. Don’t underestimate the value. The benefits far outweigh the time investment that is required.
To keep your digital clutter to a minimum, try attacking these 25 Areas of Digital Clutter to Minimalize.
1. Inbox Messages – You remove the mail from your mailbox everyday. Apply the same principle to your Inbox. To accomplish this, if you can answer an email in less than two minutes, do it right away. If it will take longer, move it into a “work in progress” folder.
2. Old Documents – Do you really need to keep everything that is in your Documents Folder? Doubtful. In fact, you could probably delete half of those documents and never regret it. If you don’t want to delete them completely, consider moving them into an archive folder so they don’t clutter your most-used document folders anymore.
3. Old Software/Program/Apps – Uninstalling is different than deleting a shortcut. Uninstalling programs frees up space on hard drive—simply deleting shortcuts doesn’t.
4. Desktop Icons – Remove as many icons from your desktop as possible. It is the equivalent of working at a cluttered desk. A clean desktop clears your workspace and allows you to concentrate on the task at hand.
5. Folder Structure – Unless you don’t mind searching every time you need a saved document, you’ll need a good folder system. To get you started, rename any folder named “New Folder,” delete any folder with nothing saved in it, and develop a good structure that works for everybody who uses the files.
6. Photos – Refuse to keep photographs that serve no purpose. You wouldn’t put bad photos in a physical photo album. Likewise, you don’t need to keep them just because there is space on your hard drive. Holding onto poor quality photos makes it more difficult to find the high quality ones when you need them. Always delete them before/during the import.
7. Music/Movies – One of the best things about digital media is that you can have every song/movie in your library available at your fingertips. Unfortunately, one of the worst things about digital media is that you have every song/movie available at your fingertips. To keep them from cluttering your library, delete unused ones permanently. If you can’t find the strength to delete them, move them to a different folder where you can recall them manually if you need to (you won’t need to).
8. Time On-line – Log on less. Your kids will thank you.
9. Facebook Friends – Too many friends on Facebook makes it more difficult to keep up with the ones you truly care about. Finding out that your old friend from high school is taking her three children out for pizza might be interesting, but the never-ending flow of information is distracting you from the people sitting next to you. At first, it is fun to join the popularity contest to see how many friends you can get—but it is important to realize you are not in high school anymore.
10. Facebook Time-Wasters – Join fewer groups, play fewer games, poke fewer people, and chat less.
11. Twitter – To improve your entire Twitter experience and to keep it productive rather than distracting, read Leo Babauta’s Minimalist Guide to Using Twitter. You’ll never use Twitter the same way again.
12. RSS Subscriptions – Unsubscribe to blogs that are no longer updated or relevant to your life. If your reader has really gotten out of control and no longer saves you time, read How to Declutter and Streamline Your Google Reader Inbox.
13. Internet Bookmarks – Delete bookmarks that are no longer needed. It is as simple as Right-Click > Delete. For the remaining bookmarks, use a folder system for quicker navigation.
14. Cookies – A cookie is a small packet of text saved by your web browser that stores information unique to you and your browser history. Generally considered harmless, a large percentage of targeted advertising comes from information gleaned from tracking cookies.
15. Old Contact Information – Delete contacts no longer needed. Update contact information that needs to be updated. This will keep your contacts folder clutter-free and efficient.
16. Passwords/Log-Ins – I use 1Password. It provides me with the security of choosing unique passwords for each of my protected accounts on-line without the headaches of trying to remember them. You’ll never go back to trying to remember them all again.
17. Email Marketing – Unsubscribe to newsletters / advertisements that no longer add value to your life. Don’t just delete, unsubscribe. It should take only a few seconds by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link on the bottom of the email.
18. Email Accounts – Nobody needs more than two e-mail accounts (work/personal). One is even better.
19. Desktop Background – Appreciate the simple beauty of a minimalist background. A background that does not clutter your eyes or mind will improve your productivity and attention span far more than you think.
20. Temporary Internet Files – Control Panel > Internet Options > General > Delete Temporary Internet Files. Done.
21. Internet Home Page – How many times have you hopped on-line just to get a small piece of information only to be sidetracked by political news, sports scores, or celebrity gossip? Probably countless times. Here’s a quick tip: Change your Internet homepage to the minimal, unpersonalized google.com. There are no tangent headlines battling for your attention.
22. Disc Clean-up/Defrag – A four-click solution on most computers. Start > Accessories > System Tools > Disc Clean-Up. To get really serious, read How to Analyze, Clean Out, and Free Space on Your Hard Drive.
23. Upgradeable Digital Devices (Cameras, Thumb Drives, MP3 players, Cell Phones, External Hard Drives). If you’ve been making the most of technology for any length of time, chances are you have a small pile of old devices that you no longer use. If you can’t find somebody who would graciously accept a hand-me-down, recycle them properly.
24. Cables – Your desktop is where you use your computer most. Don’t allow it to be overtaken by things begging for your attention and personal space… especially cables. Perhaps the solution for cable-clutter is not as difficult or expensive as you think.
25. CD-ROMS / Hardware Manuals – If you no longer use the program, you don’t need to keep the CD. Likewise, if you no longer own the hardware, you don’t need to keep the manual. And to reduce even more paper clutter, see if your hardware manuals are available on-line (in pdf format, for example). If so, discard them entirely.
Tackling all 25 areas of digital clutter will almost certainly take more time than you have available right now. That’s alright. There is probably plenty of room in your bookmarks folder for this post. Just save it under “Work in Progress.”
Ralf says
Removing irons from your desktop is like removing doors from your hallway.
Just imagine the joy if every room in your house had a maximum of two doors.
You could be living in a glass tube, with daylight coming in from all sides.
Bruce J says
Agree with some things here, disagree with others.
First and foremost: #5. Folder structure – absolutely important, particularly if you also use it for work. I also keep all my electronic financial/bill records organized by Account-account_type/date(YYYYMMDD). This lays out the records in ascending or descending time order. Having old records are useful when reviewing how money is spent, where it is going, how much electricity you used in past vs now etc. It is also useful if there is a dispute. I try to get as much of my records electronic as possible.
Folders are broken down by ‘project’ or who it was relative to. Documents and other correspondence sorted into these.
Photos-disagree; I keep most but not all (do a lot of photog). All organized under directories by ‘event_or_location\YYYYMMDD\*’. I get them off the memory card to the archive as quickly as possible. Sometimes one of the old photos later stirs a lot of memories – depends upon what happens in life. Similar with music – I get bored with some, then come back to it a year later and it is interesting again.
Cookies – set up auto cookie deletion on exiting browser.
Email accounts – I use 3. (personal, work, other+junk) – many sites want your email address – so I use an address that would not interfere with close friends/relatives and work.
Temporary Internet Files – you can set browsers to auto delete these (cache) on close. Helps eliminate ‘persistent cookies’.
CD-ROMs – RIP as many as I can, including SW install disks to ISO. CD/DVDs gets archived physically in file drawer. I use software that can mount an ISO image as yet another drive. Original CD/DVD held to prove that I did buy it (protect myself from MPAA and other legal types).
I tend to use a belief of fast organization and tossing things that I can quickly determine to not be of interest.
SixFooy says
I realized that one greatest digital clutter like I and many other people have are saving media files (music, videos and movies.) I also saved pc games. I have a large external hard drive so I could save hundreds of gigabytes worth of files. With all this space, I was still discontent with saving so many items, because if they were to be deleted by accident or lost in the future, I’d feel obligated to redownload everything I lost.
I was able to finally let go of saving music and movies, but deleting pc games took a while and I still feel as if I regret deleting all of them.
Removals Richmond says
Very nice tips. I admit that I also forget that I need to uninstall the programs I delete in the desktop. Thanks for sharing these tips.
Ilie Ciorba says
Email Accounts – Nobody needs more than two e-mail accounts (work/personal). One is even better.
That’s mostly true, but if you’re runing a business online or just a blog, you need couple of more mails. You can not avoid this. I’m using just one email account, but letters are redirected there from other three accounts.
Karl says
#26. Quit making long-ass lists. Use “chunking” to condense your information and tasks into categories, and do one thing at a time. A list of more than ten things is probably too long.
OK, so that was a little snarky, and I made it to the end of the post, so I’m obviously interested in what you have to say. But seriously, a 25-item list is neither simple, nor minimal.
joshua becker says
karl, i prefer the term “comprehensive.”
Karl says
Well, yes, and there is something to be said for a comprehensive approach. This isn’t your personal to-do list; it’s a resource for your readers.
I read The 99 Percent frequently, and I like their “bias toward action” approach. It has been a great resource for me as I try to simplify my life and iterate on my ideas. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s worth checking out:
http://the99percent.com/
This post also reminded me of the book “Rework” by the guys of 37signals. They talk a lot about simplifying things, and just doing it.
Cheers on the comment volley!
ludovic Heurtaut says
I’ll rather put
1. Buy a Mac rather than a PC
2. Delete your time loosing Facebook account
Anjanette says
Lots of good information here. One thing I keep on coming across, however, is the tip of logging in less. Great idea, and I hardly am on my computer when not at work. BUT, I have recently been getting into reading more blogs, possibly starting my own, joined Twitter, etc. and I feel that if I don’t log in frequently, the next time I do so, I am loads behind those I subscribe to and have hours of reading ahead of me. So what exactly is the balance?
Rach W. says
Man, I love this post!
I’ve been needing to prune my reader for a while now, today I’m gonna actually do it.
V says
I think it’s interesting that the becoming minimalist website has cookies, especially given #14. I try to only accept cookies that serve an identifiable purpose. What purpose does the cookie for this site serve?
Mary says
Thanks for this post. I might be very minimalistic with my physical possessions but my computer is a different story. I’ve got way too much digital clutter and I need to work on that. And now I’ve got a starting point. Thanks! :)