Introducing Digital Declutter – Read the Introduction here:

Why did I write this and will it help you declutter your own digital life? Here’s the introduction I wrote to Digital Declutter: The BIG Checklist To Obtain Digital Minimalism for you to read. The ebook is available for US$4.99.

INTRODUCTION

Digital Decluttering: The BIG Checklist is a big list of prompts to help you sweep out electronic cobwebs and slay those thundering herds of digital dust bunnies. It provides a systematic approach to ensure you find all the flotsam and jetsam of your digital clutter. The BIG Checklist is a guide with systems for you to achieve digital minimalism.

Prior to decluttering my digital life, my home was neat and organized, as was my studio space. But inside my laptop, my smartphone, and my cloud spaces, my digital life was a huge mess! It shouldn’t be too complicated to organize a few files, a bunch of emails, and some photos, I thought, but I soon discovered my digital life was so much more than that.

I worked through the KonMari Method™ of tidying up and decluttering my home. I then followed that up with a day-to-day maintenance program to keep my home organized. After much searching, I was unable to find a similarly simple yet comprehensive digital declutter checklist.

The checklists and articles I found fell short in different ways. Many of the lists only helped in a few areas, and with others, the time span recommended for all of them was literally impossible to complete considering the extent of my mess. I needed a solution beyond the two-week or thirty-day lists I was finding—unless I planned on painfully tackling my clutter like an over-caffeinated university student cramming for finals.

I created The BIG Checklist for myself and have expanded it for your use along with tips and good habits to maintain your digital organization for the long term. The BIG Checklist provides clear steps that have worked for me through mapping my digital life, creating better habits, consistently completing each task, and cleaning out each digital storage space.

I feel much more relaxed when I open my devices after having decluttered my digital life.

Digital decluttering isn’t about deleting everything. It’s about right-sizing your digital life. If you have empty space in one room of your house, yet another area is horribly crowded, you will rearrange your home for the best flow possible. Time to do the same for your digital life.

Upon completing The BIG Checklist, your computer will become noticeably faster, your workflow will be noticeably smoother, and your new familiarity with your devices will make it easier to resolve problems when they arise.

Even the biggest of big checklists have limitations, and The BIG Checklist is no exception. The BIG Checklist is a big list of organized tasks and prompts. The questions are there to help you dig yourself out from under your gigantic pile of digital clutter. We each have different work, family, and lifestyle needs and wants, creating impressively different digital lives. New technologies are being created every day, so it is impossible to give specific steps for each task in every computer operating system within a single book. I have included a section of options for you to choose from when you need more information for your specific device. In addition, there is an abundance of information online that can be found through a few simple internet searches.

I’ve arranged the chapters of this book to systematically deal with the various areas of your lives that are encroached upon or dominated by the digital world. I have also provided you with monthly, weekly, and daily habits in which to maintain your decluttering progress for the long term. It’s okay to skip around between Chapters 6 – 33 as you need to. Those without a vehicle or pets can skip whole sections of The BIG Checklist. However, skipping due to procrastination is only cheating yourself. You may need to persistently and repeatedly spend time in a single chapter, such as decluttering photographs from a massive backlog of vacations and birthday parties.

Organizing your digital clutter is a long-term project. I’ve included methods to help you track your progress, thus providing insights into improving your decluttering habits as you learn what works. Depending on the volume of your digital clutter and how much additional computer knowledge you may need to learn, it will take several months to complete.

This is a long-term decluttering adventure, a triathlon with maintenance tips to help it stick. Make the commitment to create a digitally decluttered life. Your resolution will make a huge difference towards achieving digital minimalism. By making this resolution, you promise yourself a reasonable, healthy, extended period of time in which to complete all of the tasks required to produce an uncluttered life.

So grab a friend or two and take up the challenge. A quest to sweep away digital dust bunnies is best completed with great partners at your side!

Thank you for reading the introduction to The BIG Checklist. Message me if you have any questions and you’ll find Digital Declutter available for pre-order (launching Tuesday, Oct 6) for Kindle. Including Kindle UK and Kindle Japan!

Currently available for purchase through Apple Books and Kobo and more coming as soon as I get them formatted for the different retailers.