We're in a new month, so we have a new topic. Each week in August, I'll describe a specific example of changing one small behavior or habit to move you toward having your digital life in order rather than away from it.
For everyone reading this, I'd bet that we all gradually moved into a messy digital life. We didn't suddenly acquire a giant set of disorganized data all at once. Instead, we developed habits over years and decades, learning behaviors that make us collect more data than we get rid of—emails, photos, documents, school files, work files, music, ebooks, you name it.
It's essential to realize and acknowledge this fact. You didn't get into this situation overnight.
You know what that means? You aren't going to get out of it overnight, either.
Yes, there are some effective shortcuts to make significant headway quickly, like archiving everything in your inbox for a virtual fresh start with your email. But these tricks don't change the underlying behaviors that would slowly bring us back to the same spot.
While this might seem like a disappointing realization at first, it's really the opposite. Once you understand the nature of the problem, you're free to attack it differently. You don't have to set aside a solid month and take time off of work to process, archive, or delete every email you have, every photo you've ever taken, or every document you created. Not only is such an attempt impractical, but it would also not be worth such a monumental effort.
Why? While a decades-old digital mess feels wrong, for most of us, it has relatively little impact on our lives. We don't like it being there, but the mess itself is an effect, not a cause. The cause is our proclivity for collecting too much digital stuff.
Think of your digital life like a cruise ship. You'd like it to end up in the Maldives. Right now, maybe it's on its way to...I don't know...East Cleveland. (Don't ask how that's possible. Bear with the analogy.)
There's no conceivable way to pick up the ship and turn it around all at once. You have to do it by degrees, slowly changing course over time. Each small change might feel meaningless, but they all add up to something significant. Eventually, you find yourself going in the right direction.
Let's get to it!
Baby Steps Week 1: Delete Something
This week, your task is easy. It's the most obvious antidote to collecting too much data. All you have to do is delete something.
This is a very low bar. Pick literally anything:
- An old email message in your inbox
- A photo that isn't actually that great
- A document you don't need anymore
- Something you downloaded and finished using
- A bookmark for something you're not interested in anymore
Since we're at the beginning of Baby Steps month, the point is to remind yourself what deleting feels like and prove to yourself that you can do it. Maybe you already do this, but I bet that at least some of you never delete things—not because you're opposed to it, but because you don't think about it.
If you're already comfortable with this and would like to do even better than deleting something once this week, try one or more of the following modifications (ordered in increasing effort):
- Delete something every day
- Delete multiple things every day
- Delete a significant group of things, such as:
- All promotional emails in your inbox
- All sub-par photos on your phone from this month
- All old files in your "Downloads" folder
The goal is to get comfortable with deleting stuff. Repetition is better than quantity here. The more you practice, the easier it will become. Each time you shrink your data collection, that cruise ship turns a little more toward the Maldives.
Enjoy some baby steps, and happy data-taming!