Picture for a moment, a cluttered apartment.
Over, under, around, inside, above, and below—everywhere you look, stuff would be there. You might not be able to walk in the room or see the floor at times. Spare parts, sealed boxes, unused clothes, plastic grocery bags could be thrown everywhere.
The physical clutter is unavoidably present. Your senses, attacked. Whoever owns this place or any guest that visits would be faced with the reality of it.
Minimalism often focuses on these living spaces. Decluttering is tangible here. Get rid of a box of extraneous goods, free up some space, and you’ll likely feel lighter.
When boxes pile up around the house and require additional storage, old newspapers and magazines take over the coffee table, or any time clutter distracts us from what matters most, we are confronted with this disorganization.
Overflowing consumption is easy to see when you’re living in it. You can’t walk away from the clutter and pretend it’s gone.
However, technology has shifted how digital possessions are seen and felt. Countless emails, videos, messages, family photos, and documents can be kept forever. Many companies have even created free platforms on which to store almost limitless photos and files—never demanding you delete anything any more. It’s in their best interest for you to keep saving and saving.
For the most part, I’ve enjoyed these changes. For instance, I’ve written about the advantages of using technology to reduce clutter and nobody would argue that technology has played a significant role in the growing popularity of minimalism.
Despite embracing these advancements, I have a sneaking suspicion our growing amounts of digital clutter share more in common with a cluttered apartment than we’d like to think.
Consider the following questions you might ask yourself about physical clutter:
-Ever lost your keys and inquired, “Where did I put them?”
-Ever looked in your closet at a box of documents and questioned, “How can I organize all these?”
-Ever purchased or stored expensive items and asked, “How can I secure and protect this?”
-Ever thought about self-storage options and questioned, “What does it cost to buy a bigger unit?”
-Ever wondered what happens when you’re gone and asked, “Who will take care of this stuff when I’m not here?”
Now, think about how those questions might apply to the digital world.
Desktops on computers can become the de facto home of all files—impossible to find the document when needed. A misplaced email can bring on a mini investigation or even panic. Passwords can be used to protect ourselves from unintended access or hackers, but also bring a level of stress when we struggle to recall them. And everything we ever create on computers will be passed onto our loved ones after we’re gone.
Suddenly, the digital and physical worlds don’t seem all that different. Clutter is still clutter.
We’re using technology more than ever before. This progress has rid the need for specialized devices for most daily tasks. Most don’t need a separate notebook, calculator, or stand-alone camera. Smartphones and laptops can replace them all.
We’ve gained some space in the transition.
What we might be less inclined to notice is the massive accumulation of digital “stuff.” We’re titling, organizing, and designating everything digital, deleting only when required. And while we might not look around our homes and see clutter, it might still be lurking under the lid of our laptop.
Then, like always, we’ll have to ask ourselves: what are the consequences of all this?
Perhaps your digital clutter causes a loss in time, handicaps your productivity, increases stress, or contributes to distractedness in your physical life. Much like the garage, we have to ask ourselves when it’s time to declutter those items on our desktop, delete needless emails, or reduce our digital footprint.
If there is one thing I’ve learned about physical possessions during my journey into minimalism, it is this: If a physical possession is not helping me fulfill my purpose, it is distracting me from it. And the same goes for the digital clutter we continue to accrue day after day.
If you’re looking to take a first step in minimizing your digital clutter, here are a few helpful resources to get you started:
Hi
Nice post. I like
Excellent article. I’m a minimalist and professional organizer who sees – almost universally – that people with physical/material clutter have cluttered computers. One client with whom I often work has so many documents, photos, movies, and other detritus downloaded onto her desktop that they start stacking due to there being no space left! I’ve found that it’s difficult to motivate people to really clean up their computer files, emails, and such because, to your point, the clutter isn’t as palpable as say, a messy room. Thank you! I’m passing your info along to friends.
Very nice post.
I can relate to this. It all started with the failure of the hard disk on my computer. I bought an external storage disk for back up. Then the external disk failed. So I bought two external drives and also started saving things to the cloud.
Just in case.
Now I realize that 70% what I have, I will probably never use…
I had a roommate once who looked at me aghast when I told him I ever deleted any of my emails because staring at digital clutter stresses me out. For some people an Already Reas folder is sufficient but there’s something about completely letting things go that’s mentally freeing.
If you’re a writer, a good way to reduce digital clutter is to keep a single tickler file for ideas. While I organize all of my longer work in their own respective file and/or folder, my new ideas go into one file until they are fleshed out further. This keeps down hundreds of unnecessary files from building up and also ensures I won’t have an idea only to forget where exactly I saved it… which is what I did for the bulk of my life until last year.
I have never thought about of it. But I agree with the thought. Yes, technology clutter is similar to physical one.
I really love the line in the article about how stuff that doesn’t help fulfill your purpose only distracts you from it. BUT for me to know how that applies in my own life, I’d need to rediscover my purpose or find a new one after a recent time of great change. I’d need to decide what to keep around from there.
Part of why we feel drawn to the acquisition of stuff in the first place is that we’re lost, looking for fulfillment in a store or online. Part of why we keep some of it is sentiment, reminding us of who we are and who or what shaped us.
Yes “stuff” distracts us from our mission, but without some idea of a purposeful mission, based on who we are and want to be, we don’t know what stuff to 1) get rid of and 2) acquire to help us feel fulfilled. I don’t believe I’m alone in this struggle, and I think of it as a strength and an opportunity to really reflect and choose a life we want. It’s hard to rebuild from scratch! Especially without knowing what to keep and what to leave! Should I trash it all and start the acquisition process all over again?
I LOVE your blog, LOVE your book, but in order to LIVE it, I need some help curating the simple priorities. Anyone have any insight as to how I (and anyone else with the same struggle) can get back on track?
I agree with this 100%. Digital clutter can be as stressful and overwhelming as physical clutter. Once I did a digital spring clean because my laptop was so disorganised and I felt so much better and my mind felt clearer. Though admittedly, it is messy again so I need to work out a strategy to keep it neat and organised.
Emily
The delete button is a lot like taking your stuff to the dump. It’s freeing. Photos are nice, but memories are roses for our winter.
At least in my case, a lot of the “digital clutter” problem arises from the related problem of mindless internet surfing, searching, and usage.
When I get stressed, feel anxious or bored, or think I “need a break,” I meander through the internet like Alice falling down the rabbit hole, reading and collecting articles, everything from politics, sports, and pop culture, to social media and favorite blogs, to everything and anything else. Even when the writing/information is useful or helpful or enlightening, like the articles here, the nature and “habitualness” and volume of my usage is none of those things. The mindless, undirected searching and surfing and reading clutters my hard drive and my mind, no different than physical items clutter my garage, leaving insufficient time, space and opportunity for what is truly important in my life.
I am not sure what the answer is here. For the internet surfing problem, I have been playing around with an App (at least for Mac) called “Focus,” which allows me to shut down the internet and unproductive apps/games, but that causes anxiety too because my job sometimes requires access to internet. For the digital clutter problem, I have been using bookmarks (for articles) and screen shots that dump into a folder (out of sight).
In some respects, I think the mental/digital clutter is worse than physical clutter because it is harder to identify the attendant cost and loss of freedom.
You are so me. Im in the middle of a digital detox and feel so much better for it. The best thing I did was to remove Messenger amp. I had slowly got into a habit of constantly checking my phone for messages and Im not even an IT person. I also switch off my phone in the early evening and im sleeping so much better.
I would urge everyone to police there use, it creeps up on you.
I’ve been talking a lot about this lately. I feel quite accomplished in my physical world in terms of minimalism, but I’m easily a digital hoarder. I refuse to delete my Backstreet Boys MP3’s from iTunes, even though I never listen to them. What if I need to have my 1 year old son listen to these songs when he’s 15?
But that mindset is ridiculous. If I applied that type of thinking to my physical world, my apartment would be filled to the brim with stuff.
I need to make a plan to attack my worst offenders: iTunes, Evernote, and my hard drive’s old files. Ugh. Now I know how non-minimalists feel about cleaning out their overstuffed closets.
I have found that it feels good to start over with your digital stuff. Years ago I saved everything to an external hard drive, but deleted all the extra stuff off my laptop. By doing this it gives you a feeling of a fresh start, which feels great. Plus you don’t lose your personal stuff in case you need it later.
Hi Joshua.
I agree with this, I reduced my digital clutter with simple thing – I removed apps I have no use on my Google phone (Android) and also changed the Windows laptop to Google laptop (Chromebook). With laptop I can’t install apps and since my use is mostly browser-based, I am fine with it. Also Chromebook and my Android comes with 16 GB of storage only and it forces me to keep my digital clutter down – 10 GB after OS.
I mainly use digital services by Google. YouTube for video, Play Music for Music with subscription. Since I have no need for them, I just stream them. I think buying and downloading, storing, backuping is a hassle and for me subscription based music service works the best. Also when I start to dislike certain Remix, I just replace or delete it from list. When paid, you have this fear of removing, since you paid for it 1 € track.
Drive and Photos are other services I use, immediately remove files, photos, from devices after pointing them automatically to Photos. Even then I started to notice I am no more taking photos of moments, but rather living the moments.
I think clutter-free life everywhere is worth to discover.
I am a true advocate of clearing out inboxes frequently and deleting digital files annually. It is unlikely I will need my college senior word file about evolution again. If I am truly nostalgic I can print it and place it with a photo album. Still the digital space must be cleared like the physical space for me to engage clarity and peace.
Thanks for the post. I have written about similar things in my site and always enjoy reading about minimalism through others’ experiences.
Managing my digital storage is becoming more and more stressful. I need to come up with a minimalist strategy to deal with it.
I will need to change my mindset. I now use my digital storage a trash bin. I may need to think of my digital storage as a place to store important stuff and prune it on a regular basis. Just a thought.