Declutter your Life Part 1
Tackling the Digital Hoard
My journey into the depths of digital hell started a couple years back when I discovered that I was able to register a yahoo email address using the same name as an account I had deleted more than a decade ago. Soon after logging in I received an email from some service I had signed up for all those years ago. More emails came in. The inbox filled up and the realization hit me; Anyone could have registered that address at any point between me “deleting” the account and me re-registering it. They would have had access to all those emails, being able to reset passwords and login to those accounts. Any sensitive information I had entered into these accounts would have been accessible. A problem.
I tested it and was able to login to old accounts by resetting the password with verification being sent to the email. I was disgusted, really, that one, these accounts weren’t either deleted after years of inactivity or at the very least suspended, and two, that Yahoo doesn’t permanently disable used addresses after deletion. This sparked a much larger project of mine to clean up my data footprint which took years and is still ongoing. Perpetually, because the remaining emails and accounts I have still generate digital waste and it is a daily task to clear it up.
So, the first step to decluttering your life is to tackle the digital hoard that you’ve accumulated since the inception of your online footprint probably in high school, or perhaps earlier nowadays. The reason I advise to start with digital is because it is the most low effort—physically—and you can work on it while working on other things.
There are three categories that you should focus on:
Emails (accounts themselves and actual emails—that inbox is overfilling)
Accounts (everything from random websites to banks to social media etc.)
Your local computer (hard drives, ssds, externals, usbs)
Phase 1
Start with your email addresses as this is really the foundation of your online footprint. All your website accounts connect back to the central nervous system that is your email address. Quite simply, begin to organize.
List out every email address you ever created.
Go through, one by one, the inboxes of these addresses.
It is important to start adding website accounts associated with your email address to a new list of which will be used later
Unsubscribe from spam via the usual buttons included at the bottom of the email body
Save the important bits, download pdfs, archive conversations, etc.
Lastly, delete all the garbage until you have nothing left in the inbox
At the end it should be completely clear like this
repeat for all addresses
Breathe now that your email inbox is clean organized.
Remember that cleaning your inbox will now be a routine thing. Do not get lazy and let it fill up again.
Phase 2:
The difficulty increases from here. Take that lists of website accounts (everything, social media, etc) and:
Go to each website, login to your account (you may need to reset passwords if it has been a while) and wipe your data by either entering fake data into the account information page or simply deleting it.
An important note: Be sure to save any information like tax documents from investing accounts, bank statements, photos, etc. to your computer as these will become inaccessible after deletion.
After you’ve scrubbed what you can (picture, if you will, deleting every post you ever made on an old facebook account, every like you ever made, retweet, repost, etc—this can be a very manual process), you should now officially request account deletion.
This can either be an option on your account settings page or you may have to contact support.
This is also the most irritating part; dealing with support may induce rage.
Sometimes it is impossible to delete the account and you will have to settle for having scrubbed what was possible and/or leaving fake data.
For anything you keep, add it to a list that you will maintain with discipline. Any new accounts you make, be sure to add it to the list including dates, usernames perhaps, and resist the urge to blindly hand over information. The battle is endless.
Stop making new accounts.
Try to find accounts you may not have had emails for. Think all the major social media sites, the older ones like Vine, myspace, things like imgur, stackoverflow, cloud websites like google drive, microsoft onedrive, dropbox, etc. These places might have sensitive information stored on them and it is your job to hunt it down.
Phase 3
Your local, precious files. If you were like me, you virtually saved every document and photo you’ve ever created since you got your hands on your computer. Now you must go in and sift through the pile, moving only the important files to one side, and trashing the rest.
Organize all your drives, externals, usbs.
Create a system, perhaps a folder hierarchy of where you will place everything you want to keep and a separate folder for everything you will trash.
Go through your main computer drive first, from documents to downloads to photos and so on.
Separate everything.
Scan over the deletion folder one or two times to make sure you didn’t mistakenly place something important in there.
Delete the trash folder and never look back.
Next, go one by one through your other drives, externals, and usbs using the same process.
If you didn’t organize it while sifting, go now and organize your archive.
From now on, you will refrain from leaving the structure, the system, you just worked hard on. Any new file that is worth saving will be placed neatly into the correct archive folder. Any new file you needed temporarily must be trashed once its use has dissipated.
Once you’ve reached the point of having trashed all the garbage and organized the archive, it is now your duty to keep it clean and structured. There will be days where you falter, and that is fine, just make sure to go back and clean up the mess.
Here are some miscellaneous pointers that you may find helpful:
Everything is not worth saving.
Those hundreds or thousands of mediocre photos do not hold the same weight as the dozen few that are exceptional. Get rid of them.
You can combine txt files into master txt files by just appending the new information below with some kind of clear divider. This helps if you are prone to making lists upon lists.
Your system is the best system. You can use examples as guidance but really the only way to find out what works best for you is to gets your hands dirty.
Organizing photos/videos can be a nightmare without tags. There is an infinite amount of ways to separate themes and qualities. I wouldn’t think too hard about it. Start small with one folder and build from there. So if you have photos of lakes and mountains, throw them into a “Nature” folder—family photos into a “family” folder, a sub-folder of “family_nature” for photos of family while out in nature. And so on.
Try not to get too complex with your structure. This will make it difficult to find things. Unless, of course, a powerful naming convention is used.
Name files as you organize them and use a streamlined naming convention that will be easy to navigate in the future. For example, if you are one to keep a dream diary you can
Create master folder of the year, then the 12 month sub-folders.
Within each month folder, you will have 30 or individual documents for each night.
Name them “dream_9_27_24__some_context”. The word dream is included in the event that files are somehow moved to somewhere random—you will still know generally what that file is about and can find it. If it was just “9_27_2024.txt” and it got misplaced, this might be mistaken for some other file that you labeled according to the date of its creation.
Same can be said for photos. “nature_river_9_27_2024”. In this way you know this should be in the nature folder and its sub-genre is river. Now you can easily find all your river photos by searching “nature_river_”.
The goal is to first clean up your data footprint (both online and offline), and second to keep your new structure well maintained—trim the hedges. Just like a messy, disorganized house creates a stressful environment, so to will a messy, disorganized digital house. You may not be aware of it, but once you are there is no going back. This exercise also helps protect your privacy and keeps you disciplined against all the negative scheming that thrives online. Don’t let these big tech companies track every detail about you, every website you visit, every action you take. But that is a whole other topic.
Keeping a clean digital environment is important to your mental well being. You will no longer feel out of control, overwhelmed. It may even be relaxing to clean up an email inbox—twas for me, personally. Maintaining structure strengthens one’s character. It provides responsibility, enforces accountability. Discipline isn’t an isolated phenomena; it flows naturally through all aspects of your life. By decluttering your digital environment, you give your mind more room to breathe. You gain a certain power you never thought you had before. It changes how you approach interacting with this menacing force, the internet, that is now so embedded into our lives.
Take back control. Don’t give into conveniences. Always think before giving up information, before posting anything. Empower yourself. Maintain discipline across all aspects of your life. You will feel better immediately.