How to Declutter Your Electronics

Welcome back everyone!

I mentioned in my post a couple days ago that decluttering your electronic devices is an underrated form of organization, and that I would make a post specifically detailing it soon. Well, here it is! There’s probably tons of documents, apps, and other stuff on your phone that you’ve completely forgotten about and don’t need anymore. I highly recommend following these tips to clear out your phone and ~organize~ another part of your life, especially if you’re always running out of space on your devices.

Delete old text messages, notes, voice memos, and emails – These are all little documents you probably haven’t looked at in a long time and probably will never look at again. Unless someone has sent you something important or you have a few notes that are filled with important info, I would honestly clear most everything out. I feel like emails are the area where you’ll probably keep the most, because there’s a lot of important work/school stuff.
Delete pictures you don’t want (mainly screenshots) – Obviously don’t feel pressured to get rid of meaningful pictures you actually like, but I know personally I take tons of pictures of the homework for the day written on the board in school and other stuff like that and forget to delete them later, or screenshots of other school-related stuff from my teachers’ websites. Clear all these out unless you need them still.
Delete downloaded music you don’t want anymore – If you have a streaming service like Apple Music or Spotify, you’ll always be able to download them again later, but right now they’re taking up valuable space on your phone for no reason. Delete anything that you don’t remember what it is- that’s a good sign you don’t listen to it, and remove playlists you never listen to while you’re at it.
Delete apps you don’t use anymore – I find deleting games is a good thing to do since they’re relatively unused unless you’re on long car rides or flights and need something to do, and they take up a lot of space. Otherwise, just delete whatever else you don’t need.
Wipe down the screen/keyboard/etc. of the device – Time for the actual cleaning! There’s so many germs on our devices from using them all the time, so take a Clorox/disinfectant wipe and really clean off the surfaces.
Unfollow people you’re no longer interested in staying in touch with on social media – You can unfollow people’s old accounts they don’t use anymore, accounts you don’t like seeing, celebrities you don’t care about that much, and anyone else who you don’t feel attached to seeing their posts. I also recommend removing them from following you if they currently do, just so you don’t have to be attached to their account.
Delete old contacts – Approach this with caution since you never know when you’ll need to contact someone, but we all have those random numbers of people we never really knew from group chats we’d get put in… yeah, you can delete those.
Clear your search history and cookies – Not because you have anything to hide (if you do, that’s fine too), but because the website data actually takes up space. This is an easy way to free up a little bit of space, and you’ll stop getting all those creepy automatic fill-ins while browsing (nope, just me bothered by that?).
Change your wallpaper and password if necessary – This is totally optional, but it’s always nice to change it up! I like to change my wallpaper to a time that I’m currently missing- right now it’s the Amalfi Coast from my trip to Italy last summer. The water was so gorgeous.
Back up your device – Now that you have everything cleared out, you’ll want to preserve your phone/device how it is! Back your phone up to your computer and back your computer up to a hard drive.

I hope this helped any of you guys that wanted to clean out all the junk from your digital life! Since our devices are such a major part of our everyday life now, it’s just as important for them to be organized as our concrete workspaces.

Brooke