Friday, January 11, 2008

An incentive to declutter electronically

There's nothing nicer than having an empty Inbox and a computer that is quick, organised and efficient. All it takes is a bit of work now and you'll reap the benefits the entire year!

CELL PHONE
There are many areas that get cluttered very quickly in your cell phone.

1. Contacts
Delete all temporary numbers and those belonging to people you don't know.

If I get a call from a potential client, I save the number immediately so the next time they phone I can say, "Hi Adam" and wow them with my organising skills ;) so I end up with quite a few numbers.

2. Photos
If you don't need the photos, delete them. Or send them to the person (s) you took them for.

3. Inbox
Delete all those old text messages from Christmas and New Year (and even before then). Create one standard thank-you text and send it to all those people, and then you'll feel okay about deleting their lovely messages. Or send them an email.

4. Notes and reminders
Remove any old notes (so-and-so's birthday, library books to be returned, etc.) from your calendar.

* If you have a Blackberry (crackberry ;)) or PDA, please follow the same steps above to get it all organised.

COMPUTER
5. Programmes
Go to Control Panel and click on Add or Remove Programs to remove all those trials you downloaded that you no longer need.

6. Photos
Burn your photos to disc (for back up) and delete the files from your hard drive.

Remember to label! I label each disc with a number and then I put that same number on a round piece of paper in the CD sleeve with a list of the events, like Christmas 2007, CT Nov 2007, PE Dec 2007, etc.

7. Files and folders
Delete any files you no longer use. If you need to keep any documents for reference, burn to disc and free up the space on your hard drive.

This year, resolve to apply the one in–one out principle. For every file you download, delete one. Drastic? Maybe, but it works. I go one step further and even delete the file once I've read the e-book.

8. Inbox
Delete and then archive your emails. Read Suzanne's lovely post on archiving your old emails

Delete old folders. Go through your Sent Items and please make me happy and delete the items from your Deleted Items!

9. Contacts
Delete any contacts if you can't even remember who they are or why you have their details ;) Or take the take to reconnect!

10. Bookmarks
Oh my word! It's so easy to press Ctrl + D and voila! Bookmarked! But when you have a gazillion bookmarks, it's too much bother to even look at them. So go through and delete, and then make folders to organise your bookmarks


Bonus - Blogs in your feed reader
I started off the year with 48 and am now down to 43. How about you?


Please print this email and get cracking. I'm joining you this week because I've only done the computer part of this list myself.


Okay, let's sweeten the deal and have a contest ;)

If you take up the challenge, please post a comment telling me what you did and I will give a random commenter one of my Household Organising Files (R75 value) when the contest ends on 25 Jan. If you already have one, you may pick another product of similar value - yay!!!

Or you can write a post on your own blog and link up.

Either way - just link up. Remember you have TWO whole weeks so there are no excuses :)


Are you up for the challenge?

9 comments:

Jacques Ractliffe said...

I have done all of the cleaning up on my cell phone and PC and e-mial in Dec last year - MAJOR! I then also decluttered my filing box under my bed; bought a nice filing box at CNA and filed the important stuff - got rid of all the unecessary paperwork. Also got rid of ALL my old clothes and shoes! And also realised that letting go of the "unecessary" so-called "friends" that never called me back was part of the growth process.

I feel like a new person.



Thanx for your tips,

Regards,

Jacques

Marcia Francois said...

Jacques, this makes me soooo happy!!!!

I love what you said here...
"letting go of the "unecessary" so-called "friends" that never called me back was part of the growth process"

I cleared out the contacts in my phone yesterday - now I need to do 2, 3 and 4 ;)

Anonymous said...

Hi Marcia!
I am devoting at least 30 minutes each day for some type of decluttering - papers, computer, stuff, etc.

I've gotten my feed reader down to 12 blogs (2 are yours). Two things I have done for categorizing favorites I read: I set up folders with days of the week (this is helpful for those I read once a week). Also, when working on organizing my favorites, I use a "separator" to show where I left off last. Although I wish I were more organized, I am babystepping my way so I feel good about that.

Anonymous said...

By the way, thanks for such a helpful post. The guidance is very practical.

Marcia Francois said...

Lyn, I’m so proud of you – 30 mins a day is AWESOME.

And thanks for reading – it helps to know people appreciate my writing :)

Anonymous said...

I found myself knee deep in office clutter... that took time off in Dec and got completely clutter free...

I took awhile but well worth starting off 2008.

I did include my computer in getting rid of some outdated stuff but I discovered many files are disorganzed and I'm wasting precious time finding stuff...

Your post inspired me to take tackle at least file a week and declutter and organize the contents'

Anonymous said...

Great post ... I have also linked this post at my blog since I know that my readers can benefit from it!!

Marcia Francois said...

Ann, awesome job! That's it - just keep on doing SOMETHING and meanwhile, don't make it worse by using the one in, one out rule. For every ebook saved, delete one :)

Yvonne, thanks for the link and well done for all your and your husband's clutter clearing

Anonymous said...

I received this from you in an email and it helped me out a ton so far! Thanks! =)

It's been a long time since I've stopped by here or any blog for that matter, I've been so incredibly busy with unexpected things happening the past 6 months that I needed your tips here to declutter now that life finally slowed down a bit...

Hope you've been doing well! Minus those pesky power outages of course... =)

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