My laptop has never been as clean and organised as it is now -- I wasn't sure about what to do with the random documents I had and I was guilty of storing folders in folders in folders (folderception, anyone?). If you have a ton of files, an unorganised iTunes or Spotify library, and random iPhoto pictures, it's time to organise your digital life!
get rid of your papers and digitise your life
While I was cleaning my room, I found a lot of papers in my drawers + under my bed. If you want to reduce the clutter in your room, I suggest scanning all of your important files instead of keeping physical copies of them. It's better to have scans because you can upload them online and never have to worry about losing them!
I use two websites to store my files: Dropbox and Google Drive. I use Dropbox for personal files and Google Drive for any documents related to school.
I also use a hard drive because I don't want to take up too much of my online storage limit (and sometimes it takes a long time to upload my files online). My laptop has my important folders and any folders with files that I don't refer to or use often are moved to my hard drive. With less folders on my laptop, it's easier to search for files on it!
In addition to scanning my files and throwing away the physical copies, I've stopped buying CDs, newspapers, and magazines. Nowadays, you can get songs you want to listen to and newspapers and magazines that you want to read online. You'll never have to worry about clutter again!
I use two websites to store my files: Dropbox and Google Drive. I use Dropbox for personal files and Google Drive for any documents related to school.
I also use a hard drive because I don't want to take up too much of my online storage limit (and sometimes it takes a long time to upload my files online). My laptop has my important folders and any folders with files that I don't refer to or use often are moved to my hard drive. With less folders on my laptop, it's easier to search for files on it!
In addition to scanning my files and throwing away the physical copies, I've stopped buying CDs, newspapers, and magazines. Nowadays, you can get songs you want to listen to and newspapers and magazines that you want to read online. You'll never have to worry about clutter again!
make playlists with your itunes or spotify libraries
Do you have songs on your laptop that you never listen to but can't bear to delete? I had the same problem, but I told myself that there's no point in keeping songs that I've forgotten about. Here's a tip: to decide whether you should keep a song on your laptop or not, make playlists! I made a lot of playlists with my spotify account (breakfast in bed, take me to the seaside, chill, asleep, time to boogie, dancing in the rain, friday i'm in love, and midnight city, to name a few) and I deleted the songs that I couldn't add to any playlists.
organise your iphoto library + upload your photos online
So many untitled events... oh the agony
Oh, iPhoto. It's so, so easy to just dump all your photos here and forget about organising them. I used to do this a lot, and by the end of last school year, I had dozens of albums that needed to be organised, pronto! Now, whenever I import new photos from my phone or camera, I make myself organise them right away (otherwise, I'll definitely forget about them).
I only use iPhoto for my important photos -- by doing this, I have less photos on my laptop and less albums in iPhoto. All of the other photos that I don't need to have on my laptop are uploaded online. I use Picasa Web Albums but you can use other sites such as Photobucket and Flickr. Less stuff on my laptop = happier laptop (my laptop runs faster when it has more free space so let's just use this observation to support this).
fix your gmail account
One word: labels. I used to have a ton of emails in my inbox and signing into my email account really stressed me out. Whenever I sign in nowadays, however, an empty inbox greets me, and I have labels to thank! I create labels to help me categorise my emails. Once you assign a label to an email, it moves out of your inbox -- out of sight, out of mind. ☺ I color code my labels as well (optional but you'll get 12324345 extra organisation points if you do this).
delete apps
When I first got my laptop, I was obsessed with the App Store. I downloaded the top apps just because I thought that I would need them one day but forgot about them a few days later.
I decided to delete all the apps I don't use, but dragging your apps to the trash isn't enough to remove them from your laptop (some elements are still left over, such as plist files, logs, and caches). I use AppCleaner to completely uninstall apps and I highly recommend it!
If you'd like to find out how to change the setup of your laptop to make it more minimalist, check out my previous technology post!
I decided to delete all the apps I don't use, but dragging your apps to the trash isn't enough to remove them from your laptop (some elements are still left over, such as plist files, logs, and caches). I use AppCleaner to completely uninstall apps and I highly recommend it!
If you'd like to find out how to change the setup of your laptop to make it more minimalist, check out my previous technology post!
Cheers and may the force be with you!
