Digital Decluttering

Since we probably won't have internet access straight away after we move, I will be limited to an hour a week online at the library. In preparation for this I decided it was time for some long overdue digital decluttering.

To free up the time needed to start off with, I stopped reading blogs. I then started by working through the messages in the inbox of one of my e-mail accounts. If it required any action (such as a reply) then I took the action and then either filed or deleted the e-mail. If it was from a mailing list then I unsubscribed. Each time I logged on I would start with the most recent e-mails and work backwards. Eventually I got through then all although it was embarassing to find I had an e-mail from December I had never replied to. Next I went through all the folders deleting e-mails I no longer needed and consolidating some of them together. Now I have five folders instead of about a dozen and when I log on I don't have a mountain of e-mails to delete. I must have been on at least thirty mailing lists mainly from having online accounts for things like amazon, photo printing companies and various other random things.

Once I had sorted out that e-mail account, it freed up more time online so I started reading blogs through the blogger dashboard (which is quicker than reading through bloglines) and went on to my other e-mail account. This time I went through the folders first deleting and organising (do I really need to keep hundred's of e-mails from e-bay and Amazon going back over five years?) as I knew there was more stuff to clear out. I also switched all the yahoo groups I'm subscribed to to web only except for Freecycle.

Now I am trying to work my way back through the inbox and then I will move on to replying to all my Facebook messages. Having an empty inbox in the e-mail account I've dealt with definitely helps me to deal with things more quickly rather than leaving them to sit and get lost for months.

Digital decluttering works for me.