Living online in 2020: Seven tips to a digital spring clean

In the digital age, spring cleaning is deeper than cleaning under the bed and washing the curtains.

Traditionally when you think of “spring cleaning” you think of the seasonal deep clean your family may do at home. However, as millennials and post-millennials there’s more decluttering to do than just the physical space around us.

A digital spring clean will declutter your digital spaces. The decluttering can free your mind and may help to give you a clearer and more organised outlook.

Here are seven tips for a digital spring clean.

1. Social media

Taking protective steps to secure your peace of mind is as important as taking oranges and lemons during flu season. Therefore unfriend, unfollow and unlike anything or anyone that emotionally drains you or which you no longer have any interest in.

A seasonal clean-up of your social media is more important than you think.
After cleaning out your social media platforms from everything you no longer want to see, start following the content you do want to see.

Follow pages that produce content you are interested in. For example if you like cars, follow more car pages or if you are into makeup, more makeup tutorial pages.

Also follow inspirational and motivational pages and hashtags. For example #MotivationMonday is a great way to start your week.

2. Clean out your gallery

As a habit, many of us take screenshots of almost everything and this tends to take up unnecessary space on our mobile devices. After all, screenshots tend to be an in-the-moment thing and then we forget about it.

Take some time to clean up your device’s gallery and app data as well.

Also, back up important files on to an external hard drive or on to your computer for safety.

3. Clear your browser history

Your browser stores information that may stay there for a long time. It is important to clear your browser’s history, the cache and cookies often.

This will lead to better performance and privacy.

Clearing your browser history also prevents websites from following and tracking your actions.

4. Set up a password manager

Most people tend to create different passwords for different apps and this becomes confusing.

You can simply download a password manager which will allow you to store, generate and manage your personal passwords and help restore them if necessary.

5. Unsubscribe to unwanted mailing lists

Adding your email address to almost any website results in e-mail marketing. This tends to spam your inbox and take up space.

Unsubscribing to this is key for decluttering.

You can do this by opening the e-mails you don’t want. There should be an “subscribe” link towards the bottom of the email.

This is likely to take you to another window which will check that you do really want to unsubscribe. Go through with it and click “unsubscribe”.

6. Clear your download folder

Every time you download a file it stores it in the download folder. You want to make sure you do not have any files you no longer need.

This is most important for students in particular as you will download resources for assignments which you don’t need after a while. Clear them out!

7. Update your apps

Do not rob yourself of an application’s new features by missing out on updates. Rather, update your applications as and when they are available.

You should also go through your “my apps” list in your app store and uninstall apps you no longer need.