April Digital Declutter

[Dhiana]

We have a thread for decluttering our homes,
and SimpleSarah's thread about digital clutter got me thinking that maybe we need a digital DE-clutter thread.

Between all of my emails, photographs and my website, I have a lot of work to do including creating a Shutterfly type book for our wedding photos.

It's almost April anyway so here goes my first goal: Clean out the almost 500 emails that clutter my inbox. :|(

What digital decluttering do you need to accomplish?

[Mary B.]

Good idea, Dhiana. I have masses of photos -- bring-forwards from two computers that have expired since the age of the digital photo began -- and would like to tackle them systematically. I'm contemplating backing up to cloud storage -- Flickr seems to be my friends' favourite, and then there's Dropbox which would be theoretically more private -- but at the moment they're just backed up to an external disk. But really they are so disorganized that I don't really even know what's there! So this will be a kind of archival adventure.

I've recently begun reorganizing my digital business files and that's gone well. Almost at the point where just maintenance is required. Almost.

I've made some progress with incoming mail using unroll.me -- seems to be helping manage subscriptions that I don't want to drop, but that clutter the inbox.

It's a process, right?

[ejchase]

Great idea, Dhiana.

My computer, IPhone, email inbox, and photos all need to be decluttered. I'll have to think of a specific goal and post it later.

[Float On]

Wonderful idea - I really need to do something with thousands and thousands of photos before both of my computers die.

[new2oregon]

I need to take do better with photos also. The one problem I have with this digital age is you learn to do something like photo bucket, shutterfly etc. Then they make changes and I have to learn all over again. Sometimes it seems the changes make it worse.

[ToomuchStuff]

I'd like to clean out my email, but it is so easy to be lazy when it isn't stored on my computer, and my largest account uses 7% of the storage space (which has enlarged over time). I picked up a digital camera for a few reasons, but really don't keep that many digital pictures (mainly for idea's of stuff).
I think my next systems though, will have SSD's as well as hard drives, and I am certainly more careful about flash based storage, then mech storage.

[Dhiana]

Since I have a lot of photos also and each photo cloud storage option only has limited free space, I choose a certain subject per account.
One account has our vacation photos, one account has my art work photos, etc. Well, at least that's the direction I'm going. If they are in the accounts then they are totally disorganized within that account.

There are so many different photo storage options out there.
Lifehacker compares Dropbox vs Google for hosting and sharing photos: http://lifehacker.com/google-vs-dropbox-which-is-better-for-hosting-and-sha-1488854866

Some photos stay on my phone because I need to access them super quick such as photos of the train schedule, photos of the Post Office hours, an adorable one of my husband, etc

I try not to keep much on my computer in case it dies. I've had too many friends back things to separate hard drives and then have a problem with the back up that I'd hate to spend the money on something and then have it crash, too :( I suspect there is a lower probability of problems if I leave it to the professionals such as flickr.

[Dhiana]

Finally down to just under 300 emails! YAY!! Finding emails I wanted that were buried in the mess, YAY!!!

Just remembered I need to go through the sent emails, also...demoralized for the day. Time to set it all aside for tomorrow.

[shadowmoss]

I shall attempt to get my email accounts down below 100. It is an ongoing battle. My main one I keep at 500, and that is a struggle, but I'll go back to the older ones and start filing. Misc. is a nice folder to file things into...

I keep preaching here to have everything backed up and a copy offsite. I bought a new 1.5T external drive. So, my goal for April is to copy off my network drive (which has everything on it already) onto the new drive, go the the local credit union site that has security lock boxes, get one and put the drive in it. As I do new backups on my computers, I'll add the new backups to a second drive with 'everything' on it and swap around. At least once a year. I started to say every 6 months, but my stuff doesn't change that much to need to swap it that often. I do yearly backups of the compters, so I'll just copy everything then and send the new version off site.

[gadder]

- rip CDs and donate carcasses
- unsubscribe from a few daily emailers
- ditch the electronic debris from old computers [mice, cables,...] (kept because I might someday use them...not gonna happen)
- shut down old email addresses: be honest, who among has not got unused accounts lingering around

[SimpleSarah]

I recently went to a paid Spotify account and use that and Songza for almost all of my music.

As far as the photos go, I need to get back to organizing. What I was doing, though, that has been very helpful is this (I will be using horses in my example because I am an equine artist):

Let's say I have a photo of a chestnut Arabian horse that is trotting. I want to be able to find it easily if I want chestnut photos, Arabian photos, or trotting photos. I pick the feature I would most likely be using the photo for, let's say this one I would probably use it for the trotting pose before the other attributes. I have a folder called "Trotting" so it goes in there. I next use the "tag" feature and tag it with chestnut, Arabian, and trotting, and anything else I like. If it has an especially nice flowing tail I might tag it with "tails" as well. That way the photo is put away in a folder, but it is also searchable with any of my tags. Before I started doing this I would make duplicates of the photo and put it in several folders.

I believe this is sound method, but like all organizing methods it only works if you actually DO it. Ha ha.....

[fidgiegirl]

I do something similar with blog posts, SimpleSarah. I have a list of categories and tags and have found that for me it works best to make those lists ahead of time. I use categories for the big levels and then tags for smaller, more descriptive elements. In making the list before getting deep into using the tags I have found that I use the tags more consistently and use the same tags rather than, for example, some in the singular and some in the plural (I'd end up with some "Arabian" tags and some "Arabians" tags). Plus it reminds me to include all the important descriptors. It's worked well for me!

I need to let go of some digital things as well. It's hard for me to take the time to do it because it doesn't take up physical space. What it DOES take up is mental space. Am watching the thread with interest, but with baby on the way am not sure it's the right time for me to join in (have plenty of physical items to corral right now!). Maybe you'll all inspire me to take some tiny steps anyway as there are some digital things that have been weighing on my mind in the past weeks. Strange how that happens.

[ToomuchStuff]

- rip CDs and donate carcasses


Define carcass?

[SimpleSarah]

Kelli, that is a good idea about pre-defining your tags. I haven't done that, I am sure I have "Arabian" AND "Arabians". If I put Arabian into photo search it will bring me both, though. Not sure it would bring me pics tagged with "Arab" though.

I know several professional photographers who use Flickr as their backup, and keep most of those photos private so that only their best photos are viewable to the public. There is probably some cost involved in having that much storage with them, though. But the pros do it, so why not at least use the free storage they give you, right?

[mschrisgo2]

I just unsubscribed to 12 sites that send daily emails. Whew! And reduced my inbox to 97 emails.
I have many folders that need to be evaluated, and I'll continue to work on that.

I have a question: how does one go about "closing" and old email account? I know I have a couple hanging around out there in cyberspace...

[Dhiana]

I was down to just under 250 emails until a flurry of negotiations regarding the art group I belong to and would like to keep them for at least a month to ensure everything gets done as requested.
Plus another 8 from Amazon regarding their error in not charging my account as stated for my Prime Membership. Need to keep those for probably another couple of weeks until I'm sure it really is all straightened out. But I'm still below 300!!

Sadly I receive only 2 or 3 regular emails from subscriptions, so I can't blame it on that. Most of those go into a Feedly account.

Gadder - The only email account I shut down was an Earthlink acct years ago. For them I ended up calling because it was a pay account to cancel everything.

[fidgiegirl]

Dhiana, I found this recent article "Stop Working Out of Your Inbox" (https://www.freelancersunion.org/blog/2014/03/19/stop-working-out-of-your-inbox/) interesting and had even saved it for later in my own Feedly account!

I am totally guilty as charged. Trying to figure out a better way - even transferring tasks from an e-mail into a written to-do list so I don't have to go back through the emails to find them. Now my personal e-mail is threaded, also, so that helps. My e-mail at work is not and I have a harder time with this there. At least in my personal e-mail, if I have to keep a bunch for the reasons you said (something unresolved, something still to-do), then I can delete them all at once when they are done. I wonder if I can turn on threading in my work e-mail? Something to look into today.

[iris lily]

I DO "work out of my inbox" and my daily goal is to have it empty at the end of the day. That means I "deal" with each request. When an email has been addressed, I move it to a Save folder. At work our emails are archived regularly.

There are plenty of times where an email represents a project, so I create a physical reminder of the project (something printed) and put that in my "to do" folder. But 80% of my emails can be dispensed the same day I receive them.

I am wary of email "discussions" that go on for too long, and there are plenty of times were I stop the email discussion and call a meeting so that the humans involved can have a face to face talk. My youthful employees seem unable to see that an email discussion has veered off into scads of typing with no clear communication happening. They can't bring anything to point. I'm not sure if that is a generational thing or a attribute of the personalities, but they surely do like typing.

But onto the point of this thread: I opted out of one regular email coming to my home address, and will have to figure out my username/password to get onto Twitter so that I can stop those annoying emails telling me that I haven't been on Twitter for a while...ugh. Why do I sign up for these ridiculous services?

[Gardenarian]

I also need to upload my photos and get them sorted. The date on my camera is wrong (and I don't know how to change it) so I have a couple of thousand photos in random order.

[Mary B.]

I also need to upload my photos and get them sorted. The date on my camera is wrong (and I don't know how to change it) so I have a couple of thousand photos in random order.

Gardenarian, if you search "camera brand/model" and "reset date" there's a good chance you can find a how-to. This works for me most of the time -- and i'm a former tech writer who used to be a fanatical reader of paper manuals.

[Dhiana]

Dhiana, I found this recent article "Stop Working Out of Your Inbox" (https://www.freelancersunion.org/blog/2014/03/19/stop-working-out-of-your-inbox/) interesting and had even saved it for later in my own Feedly account!

Thank you for the reminder I don't really need to keep those specific kinds of email in my inbox :) I'm very much an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of person, so it makes me nervous to file things away. But I won't NEED them in my inbox :)

Because I have hearing difficulties and I have a huge mix of international friends with various accents and language abilities it is easiest for all to have email conversations. It greatly reduces misunderstandings on everyone's part. Due to the language concerns we are all, thankfully, short and concise in our messages.

Evernote has be a HUGE, HUGE help in keeping me organized and that is where I keep my central to do list. LOVE that I can email to various notes or notebooks within my Evernote account when necessary. Absolutely amazing how that one app has greatly increased my productivity and greatly reduced clutter in my life.

[Dhiana]

Emails finally down to just under 200 in my inbox. For the moment.

[Dhiana]

A week later, a super busy weekend doing a ceramic workshop at an artist residency in Gunma and the ensuing flurry of email from other artists and I'm still hovering at 200 emails.

sigh. More effort must be given to this task or I will be completely buried. Again!