A Different Kind of Clutter

Clutter can be found in the most unlikely of places.  Hidden in a drawer, stuck in the center console in the car, at the bottom of a purse.  Regardless of where it it's found, clutter is a joy killing, time stealing, enery hogging pain in the rump.  I spend countless hours each year sorting through piles, trying to find missing items and moving random things from one room or surface to another.  One area where I have been noticing a lot of clutter lately isn't in the physical world, but in the virtual world. 

I am an Apple girl.  I have an iPhone, an iPad and my work computer is a MacBook.  I love my digital devices!  With everything I'm involved in they come in handy since I can share info across them all.  Over the past 6 months I've begun to feel the effects of virtual clutter taking over.  I had an iPhone with 16 GB and an iPad with 64 GB...so I had plenty of space available for clutter to start piling up.  I use both devices for personal stuff and for work.  My kids found lots of game apps that they enjoyed playing on my iPad, which would advertise another fun game that they would enjoy playing, which would advertise another....you get the idea.  

Last fall, in an effort to cut costs and pay a bill, I sold my 16 GB iPhone and spent about a month using a less expensive phone.  It drove me nuts, so I decided to go with an 8GB iPhone when my upgrade became available.  The price was right (free is always good), but even better, it forced me to downsize and think about that apps I was installing.  

The first apps to go were Facebook and any other form of social media.  I didn't quit them completely, I simply chose not to install the apps on the new phone.  I had noticed that because my phone is small and fits so nicely in my hand, it usually was.  I found myself accessing social media constantly throughout the day.  I also chose not to install all the excess games or any apps that I didn't need.  My one favorite game made the cut, but said 'no' to the others.

It felt weird, yet freeing at the same time.  However, I still had 64 GB of clutter on my iPad.  

I contemplated deleting everything and starting over, but that didn't seem fair to the kids, who had done a lot on my iPad over the past year and a half.

When we decided to get a iPad for the kids to use for school, we ended up with a 16 GB iPad Air.  The lightness of the new device and the fact that we would be making payments on it made me hesitant to  let the kids have it, so I decided to swap and take the device with much less space giving the kids my old iPad. I have spent the past few days carefully setting up my new device.  The apps that actually serve a purpose are in, the ones that don't are out.  

There are no before and after pics for this declutter, and I can't count bags or boxes.  However, this declutter is probably one of the most important projects I will tackle during the #40bagsin40days challenge.  Sometimes, the areas that need to be decluttered the most are the ones we can't see.