Digital Declutter

About a month ago, I decided a decluttering and general life simplification was in order.  I found myself having to trudge through STUFF to get anything done.  I felt weighed down, inefficient, and buried in junk.  It was time to make a change.

I started with my clothes.  Brutally, I assessed each garment’s worthiness to hold real estate in my closet.  I built a Project 333 capsule wardrobe and stored seasonal items out of my way.  

Then I dug a little deeper and culled some distractions and habits that were not enhancing my life, increasing my productivity, or bringing me joy.  You can read about it here.

My next project took much longer.  Digital declutter!  I’m talking computer files, email labels, photos, and subscriptions.  The victory won here is the ease with which I can move about my digital world; no more racking my brain trying (in vain) to remember what I’ve named a file so I can find it.  Let me walk you through what I’ve done…

Email: Labels, filters, and Subscriptions

The first thing I did was clean up my Gmail.  I had labels galore and was saving almost every email that dropped into my box!  I generalized my labeling system and deleted a megaton of unnecessary archived data so that using the search function would be easier and more productive.  From there I started unsubscribing from everything I didn’t need.  

The difficulty I had with unsubscribing came when, though I had hit the “unsubscribe” button and filled out whatever online form was needed, certain solicitors continued to spam me!  That was when I started to employ the filter function.  I simply create a filter that automatically deletes correspondence from a certain sender or email address.  Boom!  Clean inbox.

Photos

I was never one of those girls who took thousands of pictures of everything.  Mostly, I try to enjoy everything in the moment, but how do you keep from capturing every facial expression, every milestone, and every outfit change when you have a beautiful baby?  With the birth of Alice, I turned into a photo freak!  My iCloud quickly filled and my data was unable to back up.  That’s when I discovered the album creator in iPhoto on my Macbook Air.  I was able to choose my favorite photos and arrange them into an album, which I can order on the cheap.  I trashed the unused images and plan to order my first album soon.

Here’s the thing: I’m not going to stop taking pictures, so I worried that my iCloud would fill right back up again.  To prevent this, I turned off syncing on my phone.  That way I can choose which photos are good enough to back up, protecting my Cloud from clutter.

Text messages

iPhones store all text correspondence until you delete it or until you run out of memory.  When I finally got around to going through my texts, I had over a year’s worth.  Before deleting a thread, I checked it for important information like addresses of friends and family, which I saved elsewhere.  It’s amazing how much faster my phone runs without the unneeded junk!

Downloads and Trash

It’s easy to end up with a gazillion documents in your Downloads and Trash files on your computer.  I try to go in every Friday and clear them out to keep my machine empty of unnecessary, slowing clutter.

More work to do

I haven’t completed all I wanted to yet.  I still haven’t gone through my old Toshiba to see what I want to keep and what I no longer need.  When I do, I’ll upload all files to Google Drive, instead of filling up the hard drive of my new computer.

I guess that’s about it.  It’s amazing how quickly digital clutter can pile up!  What do you do to keep it at bay?

Don't Get Cocky!

Hello to my fellow first-time mommas!  I have another how-to for you today.  This is big, people.  Seriously.  Really big.  Huge even.  Get out a pen.  Paper.  Maybe consider taking screenshots and saving them, because this is important wisdom that I am about to share with you.  Are you ready?  Here it is:

Don’t be like me.  Stop trying to figure everything out on your own and get help from experienced mommas.

Did you get that?  Let me elaborate.  Do you have friends with multiple children?  Perhaps you attend a family-oriented church.  Are you close with your own mom or grandma?  Get the 411, Momma!  As hard as it is to hear (I know I was humbled by it), they know more than you.

Notice I did not say, “They know better than you.”  You know your baby better than anyone.  You certainly love your baby more than anyone (except maybe her father).  There are things that your baby needs that only you could possibly provide, and that feels good, doesn’t it?  You get to keep that.

But, believe it or not, you are not the first woman to ever have a baby!  Other women have done it.  Many women have done it several times.  I know, right?  Why do you care?  Because these beautiful, strong, wise women are treasure troves of useful information.  Veritable encyclopedias, written by experience and by God for you to study and heed.  If you do this, you may find joy in something that earlier caused you stress.

Let me give you an example.  Alice and I had the hardest time during spring break.  She was exhausted each morning and took long naps.  When it came time for her afternoon naps though, she refused to go down, no matter how tired she was.  And, make no mistake, she was very tired.  This caused her to fuss almost every waking minute in the afternoon!  I didn’t know what to do for her, and I was losing my mind...a fact that came bursting out of my mouth when asked how I was doing at church on Sunday.

The inquirer was none other than my lovely friend, Jen, who is raising three adorable, blond, well-behaved children.  Being unsurprised at my reply to her banal “How’s it going?”, she grew pensive and asked a few follow-up questions.  When she got to Alice’s sleep schedule, I could practically see a bulb illuminate over her head as she smiled knowingly.  

“I don’t know what your parenting method is,” she started, “but maybe check out Babycenter.com.  They have a sleep chart that might help.”

She went on to suggest that Alice wasn’t sleeping enough at night, leading to a too-long morning nap, resulting in the afternoon sleep-striking.  She advised a limited morning nap and an earlier bedtime.  

“Just take a look at the chart,” she said kindly, “I hope it helps.”

Even before arriving home, I was fervently studying.  If you’re wondering, a five-month-old baby should get between eleven and twelve hours of sleep per night.  Alice was getting around seven.  Also, four hours of daytime napping is advised, broken into three shorter segments.  We weren’t even close to hitting the mark on that either.  With this discovery, Dan and I made the decision to embark upon an immediate sleep overhaul.

It’s been about a week and a half, and the difference is amazing!  Alice wakes up on her own, smiling her drooly, toothless smile at the same time each morning.  When nap time arrives, I place her into bed, tuck her in, turn on her ocean sounds, and give her a kiss.  She closes her eyes and goes to sleep on her own.  Giggles and chatter abound until her afternoon nap, when we repeat the process with success each day.  A final mini-nap keeps her happy until bedtime, when she stretches herself out between us on the bed, puts her hand on Dan’s arm (so cute!) and dozes off into dreamland with little to no fuss. Can you believe it?!

So First-time Mommas, I know it’s hard to have to take advice.  It’s difficult to admit that you don’t always know exactly how to take care of your child.  It’s certainly humbling to ask for help.  But...listen now… It’s worth it!!  I can’t tell you how much easier my life is right now than it was two weeks ago.  All three of us are doing much better.  Now seek out those courageous women who went before you and buy them a cup of coffee.  Have a nice, long chat, then share what you’ve learned in the comments!