5 Things I Do Each Week to Keep my Digital Life Organized

So that's what we're going to be talking about today is how to stay a little bit more digitally organized , because I get questions all the time from people asking me what tools do I use , how do I keep my photos organized , how do I keep documents organized ?

So I'm going to be sharing with you guys today five things that I do every week , just once a week , and I do them all at the you know , kind of have a little chunk of time on my calendar every Friday where I do these that help me keep my digital life declutter .

So listen up , because I'm going to be sharing five activities that you might want to consider doing once a week to help keep the digital clutter at bay . Welcome to the WorkLife Harmony Podcast . I'm your host , Megan Sumrell . I'm the creator of the top program and top planner teaching all things time management , organization and productivity for women .

I'm also a mom and wife and , just like you , I'm juggling , hashtag all the things while running multiple businesses and a family . Guess what ? You don't have to feel constantly overwhelmed , exhausted and stressed out . There is another way .

When you have the right systems and tools to plan and manage your time , you can live a life that is more than just a day . When you manage your time , you can live a life of harmony . This is your show to learn from me and other amazing women how to master your time , planning an organization to skyrocket your productivity , so you can have WorkLife Harmony .

If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed , this is the show for you , and if you're new here , I'd love to get you started with my WorkLife Harmony assessment . All you have to do is DM me on Instagram at Megan Sumrell with the word harmony and my team will send it right over . Hey there , welcome back to WorkLife Harmony .

So we spend a lot of time here on the show talking about planning techniques . You all know I have shared regularly . I currently am a paper planner user . I use the top planner here . If you're watching the videos , that's what I'm holding up , but what I don't often talk about are how I keep my digital life organized .

So I use my top planner , my paper planner , to keep my calendar , my activities , my things that need to get done , organized . But in the world that we live in , let's face it , we all are leaning on digital things , whether we want to or not .

We're using emails , a lot of people are using social media or different apps to communicate through real time text messaging , et cetera . Our phones have now become our cameras , right , so we're not walking around , as I did as a kid , with a camera and then going to the drugstore and turning in our film .

So I wanted to share with you here today five tasks that I do once a week . I do these every week and I do them on Friday . That works for me . Again , you don't have to do these things on Friday . That helped me keep my digital life organized , less cluttered , et cetera .

Now , the reason why it can be so easy to let our digital life get out of control is because we don't see it . It's not in front of us . Right Now , when we think about physical stuff , it's very easy to be reminded when things are getting out of control . If I walk into the kitchen and no one's done their dishes for three days .

I'm going to see it right . They're all going to be piled up in the sink . But it gets really sneaky with our digital lives because a lot of time things can get disorganized or cluttered , and it's not in front of us the way that physical objects are All right .

So let's go through what the five things are that I do every week to help keep my life digitally decluttered and a little bit more organized . So number one is around my photos . So every Friday and this takes me probably two , three minutes tops I scroll through All of the photos , videos , et cetera that I have taken over the last week and I clean them up .

Now , how do I clean them up ? Well , they're going to fall into two different categories . I either want to keep them or I don't need them anymore , because sometimes I'm just taking a quick picture of something that I'm sending to someone . Like the other day my husband was at the store and he's like , oh , what's the brand that we need ?

I took a picture of the bottle of the thing I needed him to buy and texted it to him . I don't need to keep that , all right . So , as I go through all the photos I've taken over the last week . The first thing I do is select all of them that I know I'm not going to need and delete them .

Now for the ones that I want to keep , my weekly task around my photos is to either move them into albums I do like to lean on albums to help me organize my photos and or tags . Now , this is not going to be a how to keep photos organized deep dive training , because it really depends on what tool you use .

I'm currently an iPhone user , so I use iPhoto for backing up and storing all of my photos , but once a week I just go through everything that is new on my camera roll and I either delete it or I get it organized into its albums . And , seriously , if you do that every week , this is something you can do in a matter of just a couple of minutes .

Now , the second thing that I do to help stay digitally decluttered and better organized is around my email . Now I have a deep dive training inside of my signature program , the top program on how to stay different strategies of keeping your email organized .

But one thing that I do to kind of clean things up and not let stuff get cluttered is , again , every Friday , I actually go through my sent items folder , delete any of the stuff in there that I don't need , and then I go one step further and I actually empty my trash bins in all of my email accounts .

Now , depending upon the week , how email heavy things are , this is the longest of my digital declutter task and that probably takes me about five to six minutes for me to do that once a week . Now my inbox and everything is always organized and decluttered based on how I process my email .

But if we're not careful , all of that junk stuff and things in our sent box can really pile up . Now I have different decluttering activities that I do on monthly , quarterly and annual basis for my email and for my photos as well , but that's just a weekly task to help you keep that email storage under control .

Now the third thing that I do this was taught to me by someone I had on the podcast a couple years ago is when I am stepping away from my desk . On Friday , I actually completely shut off my computer . So I am currently using one of the newer MacBook Airs and I never have to shut this thing off .

It's not like I'm in an office setting or anything like that . So if I'm not careful I will leave that thing on for weeks and weeks and weeks . And it is good occasionally to reboot your computer .

So I actually , when I'm stepping away from my desk on Friday , I shut down my computer and then , if I need it over the weekend , that is when I will turn it back on . And this way I'm just rebooting , getting any excess tabs etc .

All cleared out on my computer , and then this also helps prevent me from having to do potential midweek operating system updates etc . Because if I go to shut that down on , you know , when I'm done on Friday , I'll either see then and there that I need to run an update , and then I have the weekend to get that done .

Now the fourth thing that I do , similar to shutting down my computer , is when I do that I also go and grab my mobile device and the tablet that I use to do some training on and I do a complete shutdown of both of those as well .

That helps with some performance and make sure that anything that's open that needs to get shut off , and this is also an opportunity for me to run any updates there as well . So I can kind of do a full shutdown , restart of computer's , phones , tablets .

Now the fifth thing that I do and this is really just for anyone that is using an online project management tool , especially if you are a small business owner , as I am , but if you are , this also can apply to anyone that is using Trello , perhaps for any digital calendaring system . The fifth thing that I do is what I call processing my incomplete tasks .

Now , for me , for the business , we keep everything in a project management tool called ClickUp , and so what I do on Friday , this is my opportunity to look back into my project management tool and see whether any tasks assigned to me that week that did not get done .

So when I say I'm going to process those incomplete tasks again , I cover a very in-depth training . I call them carryover tasks inside the top program of the step-by-step process of what to do with those tasks you wanted to get done that week but didn't .

So for me , because I run the business through a digital project management tool , I go through this process of looking at everything that didn't get done the last week that was assigned to me , if there are any , and then working through a systematic way to determine how and when I'm going to get them done , based on priority , notice .

I don't let them just by default sit there being overdue day after day after day after day , because then it's just piles up and we don't actually have a plan to get it done . So as I'm looking through any of those incomplete work tasks , I'm making very intentional decisions about when and how I am then going to get them done .

Do any communication changes around that necessary as well ? So quick recap the five things that I do , and I do mine on Friday . And , guys , I go through all five of these in less than 30 minutes , I'd say . On average , it's really about maybe 15 to 20 minutes every Friday .

So cleaning up the photos from the past week , deleting or filing them into albums , making sure that everything in my email sent is cleaned up , trash is empty , giving my computer break completely , shutting it down , rebooting any other mobile device , tablet , et cetera same thing clearing that out , cleaning it up , rebooting it and then going through and processing any

incomplete tasks , intentionally figuring out how and when they're going to get done . Now , those are the five digital things . Here's a little bonus . There are two other things I do during this window . I actually schedule 30 minutes every Friday to kind of wrap up my week .

There are two other tasks that I do that are not digital , and I cover them in lots of other training and podcasts as well . One is all around how I process my paper . So any paper that I need to deal with , I process that . On Friday , again , if you were in the top program , I have a deep dive training on exactly how I keep paper clutter at bay .

It is in the little mini course called Top for Home . And then the second is processing my notebook . All right , if you have not heard me train on how I stay organized using one and only one notebook I don't have notebooks all over the place . You can go catch that on my app . I have an app in the app store called the Pink Bee all one word .

And when you unlock all the training in that app , one of them is called the One Notebook Challenge . So when I talk about how I process my notebook every week my paper notebook that is covered in there . So if you really want to dive into how to stay organized with one notebook , go check that out , all right .

So that's just two other bonuses of how I stay organized at the end of every single week . Now , if you have things that you do weekly to help you stay digitally decluttered . I'd love for you to reach out . Let me know If you're watching this video here on YouTube . Go ahead and throw it in the comments below .

If you're listening to this podcast , please come find me

on Instagram at Megan Sumrell . Shoot me a DM and let me know what additional weekly digital decluttering tasks you use . Have a fantastic week . Getting on top of all things time management , organization and productivity doesn't have to stop just because this episode is over .

If you want one tap access to all of my training and current top podcasts , go to the app store or Google Play and download the Pink Bee app . It's one word , the Pink Bee . It is jam packed with simple yet powerful tips and strategies to get you out of overwhelm and into harmony .

And if you have a question you want me to cover on a future episode , go to iTunes and ask your question in the podcast review section . And while you're there , don't forget to leave a five star review .