Time for a digital spring clean and declutter

After a week off work and mainly a week with no laptop and very little contact with the outside world, I spent the end of yesterday and start of today “catching up” on emails and social media for both my personal and work life.

It made me realise that there is endless clutter, noise and a lot of completely irrelevant information and notifications that clog up my social feeds and email inboxes each day.

Do we need really all of these? What do they do to us?

Over the years you subscribe to, like and follow so many different things. Maybe places you hope to visit, DIY projects you hope to one day undertake, lifestyle changes you’d love to one day make, things that you could buy to “make your life better”.

But instead of them having a positive effect and motivating you they can actually make you feel a little bit stressed, inadequate and put you under unnecessary pressure.

I’ve decided to take a ruthless approach and unsubscribed, un-liked and unfollowed lots of things over the last 24 hours…and revisited settings for adverts that are shown to me.

I now have a much clearer inbox for both work and personal use, my Facebook and Twitter feeds are tidier, more relevant and are not going to put me under any unnecessary pressure.

Sometimes we need to take stock of all of the technology and the effect that our “always on” lifestyle has on us. It’s hard to 100% switch off and go on a digital-free diet, but at least we can take control of what we digest each day.

If you need help with switching off there are some great books here by Tanya Goodin and there is also a handy app called Moment which tracks how much time you spend (potentially waste) online.

Or if work calls and messages destroyed your time off over the Easter break and you’d like to take control then try Another Number for free.

Let us know what your tips are for taking control, we’d love to hear them.