It’s Decluttering Time!

After the excess of Christmas, guilt often brings us round to New Year’s resolutions. It goes without saying that I’m going to lose weight and become fitter (I’ve a new Fitbit Blaze to help); spend more time with my family and friends; and not be late for events or appointments. All laudable goals.

In addition to these stalwarts of January, I’m going to commit to de-cluttering my life as much as possible. I’m not aiming for full out austerity but if there’s something that I’m never likely to use again it’s going. Boxes, bags, clothes, toys, tech, whatever. If it’s taking space without giving value, it’s time for it to find a new home outside of mine.

I have crates of old tech for that possible future when I resurrect a couple of 90s-era PCs to play Star Wars: X-Wing v Tie Fighter in head-to-head mode. Serial cables, gender changes, 10base2 network cards, floppy drives. Seriously, it’s never going to happen. Time to dump the lot and stop hoarding.

In addition to the physical, my digital life needs a good tidy too. My inbox is full of adverts and promotions from shops and stores trying to sell me more stuff which I don’t need. I’ve had enough. Instead of wasting twenty minutes of the day deleting unwanted emails, I’m ruthlessly unsubscribing and unless I’m actually going to read the email, it’s gone.

Social media…..what a time sink! For starters, all notifications are going. If I log on (at a time of my choosing) and see new pictures, great. Otherwise, I don’t want an email, alert or other distraction imploring me to DO IT NOW. Whatever it is, it can wait. Sorry Google+, Ello and Pinterest, but I’m slimming down on my social exposure and you’re out of here.

Finally, having a OnePlus 2 with 64GB means that in well over a year of use, I’ve never had to worry about running out of memory or storage. The downside is that my smartphone is full of apps and media, many of which never get any screen time. Some apps haven’t been used in months, so it’s time to uninstall those and reclaim the launcher space.

It’s a digital declutter! What are you going to do differently this year?