I have been on a bit of a mission as of late to limit some of the noise and distraction social media apps and other digital platforms have on my attention.
After watching the Social Dilemma on Netflix I felt even more motivated to take back a little bit of control when it came to my digital devices. I felt the need to implement some strategies to limit distractions brought on by these platforms.
After joining social media platforms as early as 13 years ago it was time to declutter my digital space and stop these apps from having so much of a hold on my life. They have taken our time, attention and more, for too long.
I unfriended people, unliked and unfollowed groups, unsubscribed and deleted things that were taking up digital space in my life. If you too are keen to limit distraction in your life I hope this post helps get you started in decluttering your digital space and taking back some of your time and attention so you can focus on better things and live a more intentional life!
Check out the 17 Ways You Can Declutter you Digital Space and Limit Distractions
17 Ways You Can Declutter you Digital Space and Limit Distractions
- Unsubscribe from emails as they appear in your inbox.
If you see an email from a store or person you don’t want to receive emails from, open the email as soon as you see it and find the Unsubscribe option, usually found at the top or bottom of the email. Do this each time you get an unwanted email so you can curate your inbox as you go. Don’t forget to move non-important emails to your Social or Promotions folder or equivalent to only keep what is necessary in your inbox.
You can take this further by logging into your accounts like reward cards and changing your email preferences. I recently did this for 3 email lists I was on that were slowly sending me insane. I realised I had received emails every second day – or more, from these lists and it needed to stop! I went into manage my email settings and unticked the email marketing options and only allowed what I actually wanted to be emailed about. Alternatively, just unsubscribe from the list and limit distractions from these emails altogether!
2. Follow only your favourite blogs
I love keeping up with my favourite blogs, and other helpful tips that came into my inbox. But I realised that being subscribed to so many blogs and not having the time to read everything was causing me more stress and doing the opposite of adding value to me. Particularly when some emailed me every day and I was never, ever going to be able to read everything.
Instead, I selected a few of my favourite blogs to stay subscribed to and unsubscribed from the rest so now my email subscriptions are less overwhelming and the things I really find value in and enjoy reading. And ever since making these changes I have been reading a lot more blog posts that are more relevant to what I want to read which has been a welcome change.
3. Delete apps you haven’t used in the last 3 months.
If you have any apps taking up space on your home screen, it’s time to delete them. You can always reinstall it if you really need it back. Simply click on Settings and Apps on your phone menu and search the list for the apps you want to remove and select Uninstall on each of the Apps. This will declutter your phone screen from unused and unwanted apps and make it easier to locate the ones you do want to find.
4. Delete emails as you go
Emails can quickly get out of control and take over your inbox. A great way to stay on top of these is to delete emails as you go. Once you’ve picked up your lunch order, delete the notification email. Same goes for delivery email notifications, once the item has been delivered, delete any excess emails about the delivery you no longer need.
Don’t let your inbox get out of control by staying on top of your inbox day to day. It could just take one minute a day to delete unwanted emails and keep on top of that inbox number.
5. Put a time limit on your app use
The next time you are checking your emails or using your social media apps, set a timer on how long you can use them for. I just use my Fitbit Timer. Once the timer goes off, close the app and get back to more productive things!
Related Post: 6 Ways to Reduce Social Media Use in 2020
6. Delete your Friends list/Unfollow accounts
When was the last time you reviewed your Insta, Facebook or other friends/followers lists? If you have 1000 friends, followers or more, chances are you have too many and can’t possibly keep up with them.
I recently checked my Instagram account follows and realised I had over 1200. Many of them hadn’t made a post in two years. I have slowly been unfollowing accounts I no longer want to see posts from or inactive accounts to limit distractions, and look forward to my feed being more relevant to the accounts I still want to keep up with. This has been a fairly slow and painful process so I will certainly be more selective with who I follow in future.
If you feel that you have some excess follows and friends in your social media accounts, go through your list and delete or unfollow anyone that you no longer know or keep in touch with. That’s the old school “friends” you never spoke to and people from your past you have lost touch with and don’t see the need to rekindle those friendships.
Ideally, this will help to free up your news feed so you can see the posts from the people you actually care about.
Related Post : 25 Things You Can Do to Simplify Your Life
7. Unfollow Facebook Groups you no longer enjoy
It can be easy to join different groups on a whim without ever really participating or finding any value in those groups. Review your Facebook Groups and delete any that you are no longer interested in, particularly if those groups are no longer that active. When you have fewer groups you can free your digital space to participate in the ones that truly add value to your life.
I recently reviewed all the Facebook groups I was a member of to help limit distractions and unjoined any that I no longer found value in. Groups who go off-topic aren’t worth your time and attention so if you have any in your list, or find any you have joined where Admins are not monitoring the posts are appropriate to the group goal, just leave the group.
You can also unfollow groups as well to keep the posts from taking over my feed like groups tend to do. You can just view group’s post simply from the Facebook menu list and select Groups to see all the recent posts from each group in one place and keep them from saturating your home feed.
8. Delete photos when you have a spare moment
Digital photo albums can easily get out of hand when we are carrying around cameras in our pockets 24/7. To try and stay on top of these photos, get into the habit of deleting photos on a regular basis. Take advantage of any time you are waiting for your Doctor appointment or on a tea break to get on top of your photos.
Delete any that are duplicates, blurry or accidental shots with fingers covering the lens. Keep only your faves, it’ll be much easier to find the ones you want later with a more curated album. This is another thing that will take time so if you can just dedicate a few minutes each day when you have a spare moment to this you will eventually make a lot of progress.
9. Change your habits around taking photos
Once you start deleting photographs on your phone, you will wish you took at least half the ones you did. Deleteing these is a tedious process.
Take your digital minimalism a step further and implement steps to limit how many photos you take in the first place. Avoid taking 30 selfies to get the right one. Take one or two of the area and then put your phone away and enjoy the moment. This means you can limit distractions, be more present, as well as have more opportunity to remember your day or event rather than being on your phone the whole time and you’ll save yourself having 1000 of photos to sift through when you want to look at them. I currently have my down to 3555 photos that need to be reviewed and organised – wish me luck!
10. Delete your downloads folder regularly
Download folders can often go unchecked, but not anymore. Delete your download folder on a regular basis to know the amazing feeling that comes with an empty download folder! File what you need where appropriate and get rid of the rest!
11. Back up your phone photos frequently
Declutter your phone storage by backing up your phone photo albums regularly and then delete your phone storage once it has been backed up. This will keep your phone working fast and mean you have all your photos backed up in case it is lost or stolen. You can set up your photos to automatically sink when WIFI is on to do this without you having to remember.
12. Put your phone down
This is one many of us no longer seem to do. My husband and I have a phone policy if we are together having a meal our phones are put away. And I can’t tell you the number of people we have seen whilst we are out having dinner looking at their phone constantly whilst the other partner either sits there bored silly or are on their phone as well. Be present in the moment with who you are with and save your browsing for other occasions. It’s rude and disrespectful to the person who is across from you. Limit distractions and put the phone away.
But don’t stop there, put your phone away as much as you can and instead do something that adds to your day; take a walk, read a book, meditate, do that thing you have been procrastinating. I’ve recently adopted going for walks on my tea break and leaving my phone at my office. I can instead focus on me and my walk and what I can hear and see around me.
No one wants to look back on their life and realise they spent most of it browsing social media. It has a hold of most of us on some level so the little things we can do to limit that pull to use our phones, such as putting it away will go a long way to helping curb that addiction to our phones.
13. Turn off App notifications
When I first got my new phone, I was constantly bombarded with notifications from social media apps about every little thing they could possibly bother me with. After a few days of this, I’d had enough Instagram and facebook notifications and went into my app settings and realised my apps were all set to notifications ‘On’, which of course is the default setting. I turned everything off, and now only have text messages, Messenger and email notifications turned on.
You might even take it a step further and turn off your email or all message notifications and instead check those as set times in the day like Lauren, from the Millenial Minimalists suggests. This is a great way to limit distractions and remain productive for longer.
14. Turn off In-App notifications
If you have done the above, don’t stop there, there is more to be done! How many times have you logged into facebook to see 20 odd notifications about absolutely nothing in particular? Comments on a post you commented on, an event your friend is interested in, blah blah has an account you might like to follow.
The noise never seems to stop but there is something you can do to turn off as much of it as you can, without having to delete the app altogether.
When you are on Facebook, if you receive a notification, click the three buttons at the side to turn those notifications off each time they appear. Over time you should receive less and less of them. There are still limitations here but it will go some of the way to eliminating pointless notifications.
And if you are receiving notifications on a post you commented on and no longer want to be notified, simply go to that post and click the three dots to the top right and select ‘turn off notifications for this post’.
15. Unfollow Facebook pages you no longer find value in
I joined Facebook back in 2007 which means to this day I like some random pages I am not even aware of and I am sure there are some lame 2007 pages like ‘I like walking in the rain’ or some crap ‘;) .
Unfortunately, Facebook is not about to make unfollowing these Pages too easy for us so this one takes a bit of work. I have decided to unfollow pages as I see posts on my feed that I don’t care for, to curate my feed over time. Over the past few weeks I have noticed since doing this and unfollowing groups and friends my newsfeed has more interesting content so I can keep up with the posts I actually care to see.
16. Take opportunities to put your phone away
Leave your phone at home when you take a walk, put your phone away in a drawer when you are at home so you won’t feel the urge to keep it in your hand. Keep it in your handbag when you are dining out with someone and give them your undivided attention. And that doesn’t mean on the table where you can still see it blinking! No one can resist the allure of that blinking light.
The less that phone is in your hand, the less chance that incessant flashing blue light will have of distracting you from the important things you want and need to do.
You can take it a step further and do The Minimalist’s Screenless Saturday where you avoid using your phone for an entire day.
17. Avoid taking on too many social media platforms
There will always be the new ‘it’ social media platform, and using all of them is only going to eat up more and more of your time. I personally have Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube for personal use and my blog accounts, and I promise you that takes up more than enough of my time. I am not about to add more to that distraction-zone!
I never got around to getting a Twitter account, Snapchat or the latest TikTok and I am completely okay with that. I don’t need to be on every single platform and either do you. Use the platforms that you enjoy and that add value to your life and delete the others. Or just avoid adopting them all together and take some of your life back!
