Digital Minimalism - Simple ways to declutter your phone

Digital Minimalism is not about removing technology. Digital Minimalism is all about using technology intentionally and using it as a beneficial tool to your life as opposed to letting technology use you. We spend such a large proportion of our daily lives staring at these screens and more often than not it is affecting our mental and physical health poorly yet we cannot seem to stop. I have been trying to cut down on my time spent aimlessly scrolling through social media and just be more aware of my interactions with technology. Our phones in particular can be incredibly distracting, well they are designed that way so it's no real surprise. Anyway, having a busy and cluttered phone full of apps only adds to the likelihood of spending hours aimlessly on your phone. A few months ago I decided to declutter my phone and turn it into a tool to add value to my life in hope that I waste less time on it. There are some simple things you can do to declutter your phone.

1. Remove all apps that you do not need/use - Be brutal with this. Remember you can always re-download apps in the future if you're finding you really need them.

2. Try to uninstall social media apps that are very distracting and/or negative to your mental health.

3. Spend some time categorising your remaining apps into folders for example 'banking', 'travel' etc and you can even have a folder for 'not frequently used' apps which you can call 'NFU'. Anything incredibly important that you may need quickly like phone leave outside of a folder.

4. Now think about where each folder of apps should be placed on your phone. As a general rule, place less distracting apps on the first page of your phone and most distracting/less frequently used on subsequent pages.

5. Take a look at your notifications and turn off push notifications for anything that again distracts you. Do you need to be alerted every time someone posts on Twitter?

6. Close down any tabs left open on your internet page.

7. Spend some time going through your emails and decluttering them.

These 7 steps should transform your phone from being cluttered, distracting and messy to being minimal, functional and accessible. I also like to make my lock screen and background a block colour so it appears minimal but this is just preference.

I have a few videos on my YouTube channel about Digital Minimalism, so check them out if you're interested!

Thank you for reading,

Hayley