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My current desktop image - a photo I took of the Tessellated Pavement on
Tasmania's stunning Tasmania Peninsular, one of my favourite places! |
As an artist, I find if my space is cluttered it's really hard to think straight and to produce good work. However, perhaps it's the artistic nature to be messy because I also find it hard to keep my environment in the state that I would like it - anyone else relate to this??
If you’re anything like me, you have 1000s of emails in your inbox, 1000s of old photos taking room on your hard drive, a bunch of little programs you never use, random items all over your desktop. It’s a huge and overwhelming task to clean all this up, so most of us never get around to it. I mean, who wants to spend the better part of a week sorting out digital files? These are things that don’t even exist! Yet they clutter our lives just as much as the papers on your desk and the dirty clothes in the wash basket (or on the floor!).
I’ve been tacking my digital ‘mess’ over recent weeks and thought I’d share with you some simple concepts that have made the process easy for me. I hope this helps inspire you to take action on your own digital mess and thus create more 'space' for creativity!
1. Delete old emails
Every morning when you check your email, delete 100 old emails. I use gmail and here, it’s easy - just go to your oldest emails (by clicking on the numbers in the top right hand side). Then work through them. Most of them you won’t even need to look at at. If you’re not sure, leave them there for later. At this point, we’re just clearing out. So delete, delete, delete!
2. Delete old pictures
Another daily task. Go to your pictures folder, pick the oldest folder in there and open it up. Now, go through it and delete anything you don’t need. Again, if you’re not sure, leave it for now. Just get rid of the many repeats, mistakes, irrelevant photos that clutter our folders now that we have the technology to take and keep everything!!
3. Clean your desktop
Make a new folder on your desktop and call it Desktop. Or whatever. Then drag everything on your desktop into it. And voila! You have a clean desktop with one icon! Now, every morning, go into this folder and go to the top item. Either delete it, or find a proper home for it. That’s it. One everyday til the folder is empty, or only has a few things in it that you actually want on your desktop. As for me, I like a clean desktop (not that you’d know it half the time). Anything I want easy access too, such as start up icons for programs I use regularly, I put down on my task bar.
4. Clean your harddrive
Go to your control panel, uninstall programs. Now go through this list and uninstall one item a day that you never use. Word of warning - if you are like me, you won’t know what half of these things do. If you don’t know, don’t delete it! It just may be something important. Better to leave it there than risk messing up your computer. Perhaps one day you’ll find a computer savvy friend who can help you clean up the last bits and pieces.
5. Five minutes a day is all it takes!
Spend 5 minutes a day doing these tasks. You can even time yourself. Once 5 minutes is up, stop. This way, the task never gets too big, too time consuming and too much!
I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now and while I’m not finished, I’m really making good progress. And not least, it’s a satisfying thing to do - like crossing off items on a to do list, or cleaning out the fridge. It may not be fun, but 5 minutes a day makes it painless. And if you’re like me, you’ll be happier for it!
Good luck!
