Today your assignment is to choose THE MOST annoying thing about your digital life, and do something to alleviate it—it’s time to delete your top digital stressor.
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Here are some ideas to help you delete your top digital stressor
If your top digital stressor it’s remembering passwords
Sign up for a password manager, where you only have to remember ONE password and then the manager signs you to every other sight. Some of the ones I’ve read good things about are Dashlane, Lastpass, and 1Password. Honestly, we should all be doing this, anyway, and not just for easy sign-ins, but because they help protect you from hackers. This is on my list of things to do, I haven’t done it yet but it is on my list, for sure.
If your top digital stressor is the number of emails you get
Go on an unsubscribing spree. I love newsletters as much as the next person. Heck, I publish two of them. I always subscribe to an online retailer’s newsletter so I can save 15% off my first purchase. But periodically, you’ve got to do the painstaking work to unsubscribe from the ones you never read, or even the ones you look at but perhaps don’t need to— like, do I really need to know about every sale so that I start shopping randomly in the middle of an email check-in? No. No I do not. Put on some good music, and just go to town. You can also use a service here like unroll.me
If your top digital stressor is notifications
Hopefully we took care of that on Day 2, when we de-vegased your phone. Hopefully that is better. If you haven’t done that yet, here’s your reminder to go back and listen to that episode then go on a notification killing spree.
If your top digital stressor is mindlessly scrolling through social media
You’ve got a couple options—you can remove those apps from your phone so that you can only look at them when you’re at your desk, on your computer, or you can use your screen-time function on your iPhone to set limits for specific apps. There’s also apps for your computer that lets you block access to certain sites for certain periods of time. I use the SelfControl app to block me from looking at social media sites when I need to work on something with uninterrupted focus.
And if your top digital stressor is getting into fights with folks on social media
Well, listen, it sounds like you need to take a break. Use the things I just talked about to help yourself stay away. And go do things that restore you and your faith in humanity. Your sanity is worth it, and really, you’re not going to change any hearts and minds by jousting in the comments of social media posts.
If your number one digital stressor is something I haven’t mentioned
Take a couple minutes after this episode is over to think about what you can do to remedy it. You will thank yourself later, I assure you.
Mind you, I’m not suggesting you do all of these things. Just that you do something about the thing about your digital life that stresses you out the most. We’re trying to lower your Digital Clutter Quotient, remember, so let’s take aim at the thing that will have the biggest impact. I want you heading into next week feeling like you’ve really changed your digital stress levels.
You can always circle back around later and do something about the other things that cause you digital agita. And, let’s face it, you’ll have to do it again in another six months to a year. Just like physical decluttering, digital decluttering isn’t set it and forget it unfortunately. But it’s a worthy use of your time.
Stay Awhile!
Be sure and come back tomorrow for the final day of De-Clutter Your Digital Life where we’re going to talk about a necessary, fun, but maybe a little daunting step that can really refresh your whole relationship to your devices and reboot your brain.
