Doing a Digital Detox: declutter and organise your digital devices

5 minute read

Most people are aware of the mess and clutter in their homes. Even if they do nothing about it, they can see it and feel it, and it quietly nags them whenever they walk past the stack of unsorted books or the dirty laundry on the floor. Digital clutter, on the other hand, is often invisible. We press a button on our devices and, without realising it, save a copy in the cloud or in a hidden folder on our hard disk. We take screenshots of the restaurant menu and it vanishes between 20 almost identical photos of our kids or pets. 

With ever-changing technology, many of us over 45 who didn't grow up with smartphones or computers struggle to keep up or operate our devices to their full potential. Rather than doing something about it, we leave files where they are and hope that the dreaded 'Your Memory is almost full' message doesn't appear anytime soon. 

APDO member Bettina Trabant outlines why digital decluttering is a good idea, where to start organising and decluttering your files, and how to maintain a clutter-free digital life moving forward. 

1. Reasons to declutter your digital devices

Decluttering your files can save you money. Cloud storage providers such as Google Drive make it very easy to upgrade to their paid services with a single click. Anyone who has ever experienced an almost full drive will be aware of the nagging messages to upgrade that pop up at regular intervals. While Cloud storage is cheap, with Google Drive only charging £1.59 per 100GB and iCloud at just under £1 for 50GB, digital expenses can soon add up.

Furthermore, digital decluttering is good for the planet. People are well-versed in the damage that textiles or flying does to our planet. Not many people, however, know about email, cloud storage and their contribution to carbon emissions. 

While it is beyond the scope of this article to go into detail about CO2 emissions and online activity, here are a few figures to give us food for thought. 

The carbon footprint of an individual email is estimated to be between 0.03g and 26g, which isn't a massive amount, but Statista states that humans sent more than 306 billion emails in 2021. Over the course of a year, a person's average email usage emits between 3 and 40 kilograms of CO2, equivalent to driving between 10 and 128 miles in a small petrol car. 

And it's not just emails that are problematic: data centres that house our cloud storage and online apps can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to the water use of a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.

Having organised files can reduce stress. According to Business Matters, UK knowledge workers spend around 44 minutes a day searching for files.

2. Tips for getting started with Digital Organising

Now that we have established why digital decluttering might be a good idea, we may feel overwhelmed by the tasks ahead. Here are three easy places to start decluttering and organising. 

A good place to start is your email inbox. By bulk-deleting and unsubscribing from newsletters and promotional emails, you can soon see the clutter vanish. My APDO colleagues, Lesley and Ingrid from Declutter Hub, point out that the number next to your inbox is a constant reminder of how many unread emails you have. 

Did you know you can sort your emails by sender, allowing you to bulk delete and unsubscribe?

Photos are another great area to sort and declutter. When I was little, there were no mobile phones and people would only take photos on special occasions. Nowadays, people have phones in their pockets, so loads of us happily snap away in burst mode to capture our child or pet at their best. 

To start decluttering your photos, consolidate them into one place, such as your cloud storage or hard drive. Duplicate removers are an easy and quick way to find identical images. There are hundreds of options out there, but many, such as Duplicate Photo Cleaner, have a free version to get you started. 

Once you have deleted duplicates, go through your photos and look for blurry images or those that are meaningless, such as screenshots or random people.

Tackling the apps on your phone or tablet is another great way to quickly clean up your devices and save space. Start by going through your phone and tablet and deleting any apps you no longer need. We all have travel apps from our holiday abroad or games we no longer play.

Following the above, group apps by areas such as games, finances or communication. This way, you won't have to scroll through endless pages to find what you are looking for

3. How to keep your devices clutter-free

So, you have started implementing some of the above, but how do you keep clutter from creeping up again? After all, you don't want to spend more afternoons deleting and rearranging digital files if you can help it.

The most crucial advice I give my clients is to declutter and organise regularly to prevent clutter from creeping back. 

I practice Inbox Zero, a concept developed by Merlin Mann, in which you aim to keep your inbox near zero each day. 

I do this by deleting any emails that require no action on my part, unsubscribing from anything that no longer serves a purpose in my life, and sorting the remaining emails into actionable folders. To make things easy, I only have four folders that speak for themselves: To Read, To Respond, Waiting for, and Archive.  

To prevent my photos from becoming overwhelming, I spend 5 minutes each week going through my phone’s photo folder, deleting anything I don't want to keep. 

Every couple of months, I back up my photos and delete the old ones from my phone to prevent it from running out of space or slowing down. 

Once a year, I reserve a few hours on my calendar to go through all my folders and apps on my devices to ensure everything is in the right place and I don't have unnecessary files lurking anywhere. 

Meanwhile I regularly delete my trash can, my spam and my downloads folders. I check whether all files are in the most logical place or are still needed. For unwanted files, 

I decide whether to delete them or place them in an archive for future reference. 

This blog is only an introduction and in no way exhaustive. If you would like support with your own digital detox, take a look at our member directory to find your personal professional organiser.