Home Organization: How to Organize your Electronic Clutter

Entry #322, November 5, 2010

Over my last few months of working on my own I’m coming to realize.. electronic clutter is my biggest enemy. Between emails from clients, passwords, daycare information, son’s lunch money accounts, calendar reminders, and social media correspondence, my electronic clutter is through the roof! So I started my own system of breaking my email box into separate folders for clients, personal, Stagetecture blog, etc..

It has helped me tremendously! Today I found this article from Marilyn Bohn, from Searchwarp.com, about reducing electronic clutter. I think it’s great information for anyone needing electronic organization!

Reduce your electronic clutter

I worked with a client a few weeks ago and we set up a filing system in her home office.  Then we organized every other room in her home. She called me to say she felt free because of all the organizing we had done. She could now find everything and by putting things away where they belonged she didn’t have to donate large chunks of time to find things she needed. She carried it one step further by organizing her electronic mail. Technology organizing is something we often neglect.

She had an email account she didn’t use very often and dreaded ever going to it as she knew it was cluttered with out of date information and things she just didn’t want to deal with. But because she had been so successful in reducing clutter in other parts of her home she tackled the problem.  She got her inbox cleared out and because of this she received a 40% off coupon to a local bookstore which she never would have found if she had not de-cluttered.

Here are 10 organizing tips on how to reduce electronic clutter.

When computers first came out they were to save us time but do you find you they now use more of your time than you have to spare?

1. Set a timer when you surf the web or read your emails if you get sucked into hours at the computer “against your will”. When the timer rings close down and walk away. Set up a routine of doing this and you will find more time in your day to do other things.

2. When receiving junk mail or spam immediately delete it without taking your time to read it. You don’t even need to open it.

3. Ask your friends not to send you spam. If you can’t ask them never ever return it to them or respond and they will hopefully stop sending you junk. Mark spam as spam if your email allows you to do so. This will stop that certain type of spam coming into your email in box.

4. Set up a different email address for store offers you want to receive.  These won’t clog your personal email in box. Remember to look at it every week or two. Delete the offers you aren’t going to use. Before signing up ask if they sale their lists, if they do, don’t sign up with them.

5. Make electronic folders for any information you are keeping. This will keep your in box free for incoming mail. If it is something you need to take action on in the next few days mark it with a star or a flag so you know it is something you need to take care of soon.

Help yourself by keeping your computer files organized

6. Make a folder for receipts. Scan receipts and when you need them they will be easily accessible. Make a financial folder.  When you pay bills on line and your financial institution notifies you the bill has been paid put the notification in the folder. It is accessible to refer back to as needed.

7. Passwords are very important to your security. I don’t recommend keeping them in a word document on your computer for your own protection. I do recommend keeping them in a notebook and put this in a secure place in your filing system (not under the tab “passwords”) or hidden on a bookshelf.

There are electronic password protectors that remember your passwords. I use roboform.com.  This company came highly recommended to me from an electronic consultant to several large companies in the Seattle area. I have used it for several years with no problems. There are others on the web also that can be purchased.

8. Make folders for information you retrieve on the internet. A web site can be electronically bookmarked in the browser or the information copied and pasted into a Word document, and then moved to a folder. Make folders for information you do bookmark in your browser to make it more accessible and to save you time.

9. There are many social bookmarks to make it easy for you to retrieve information when away from your personal computer. Delicious.com is one of them. And you can share what you have bookmarked with others and can see what they are interested in that may be of help to you.

10. Online to do lists can assist you in planning your daily and weekly tasks. Many are free and you can manage your tasks from anywhere and any computer.  www. rememberthemilk.com is one site. www.memotome.com will remind you of whatever date you have told it to remind you of. And if you have Office Outlook it can also do all of these tasks for you.

Electronics can work for us or against us. These organizing tips to eliminate electronic clutter are meant to help you take control of your computer and take back your life.

Marilyn is a professional organizer who works with women and seniors in clearing clutter and providing organizing tips. Clearing clutter helps those she works with to have less stress in their lives and feel more joy in living.
Marilyn invites you to visit her website http://www.marilynbohn.com where you can find organizing solutions.  You will find fun stories and free organizing tips in her blogs, articles and videos.

Thank you Marilyn!

For more home organization ideas on Stagetecture, click here.