De-Clutter Your Most Looked At Item: Your Phone!

Every time you look at a cluttered space, it affects your mind. Just think for a moment how it feels to sit in a clean, picked up room that is comfortable and relaxing, vs. sitting in a space jammed with stuff on every surface. I wouldn't even want to sit down in the latter. So in an effort to give you the most bang for your de-cluttering buck, I suggest you clean up the thing you look at most of all - your phone!

Studies vary but the most conservative says Americans look at their phones 80 times per day. Some studies show that number being as high as 2,000 times a day. Wow. So why not de-clutter your phone so that picking it up makes you feel calm instead of like you've walked into a jam packed room with clutter in every corner?

 This will take you less than 21 minutes, because that's how long it took me and I took notes to share with you :)

Let me tell you about my "before." First of all, I got a brand new phone in July (thanks to dropping my old one in the lake . . . don't take your phones on a dock people. Especially not if there is a puppy around) so you would think it couldn't be THAT bad. You'd be wrong! Just since July, I had 5 screens jam packed with 113 apps.

When I looked at what apps used up most of my battery (a good indicator for how often you're using them for how long), 9 apps made up about 80% of my use. I'll show you how to check this in the steps below.  

I also looked through my apps and realized there are some that are essential to me, but that I don't use for very long. For example, I pay my nanny every week using the Cash app, but I only use it for about 30 seconds. It was 4 screens over instead of on the home screen. I also use the MindBody app to schedule yoga classes, probably 2 minutes per week, but important. In the end, there were 22 apps that I used every single week. Some were rare but I still wanted to keep, some I was ready to delete, and some I didn't even recognize!  

My background photo also made it feel like there was even more junk on my phone. My daughter and I had a really fun evening watching YouTube tutorials about how to do watercolor paintings. I saved one of them as my phone wallpaper to remind me of the fun we had. But it turns out, switching the background to all black made it feel a lot more calming to me. I'll save the painting as the lock screen on my phone or apple watch instead!  

So yourself a favor and de-clutter your phone. Look how beautiful my “after” is! It's quick, it's easy and it will calm your mind 80+ times a day.

 (Side note: If you have never moved, removed, put apps in folders or changed your wallpaper - or just need a reminder - this explains how for Apple devices, and  this explains how for Android devices. )

 Ok let's do this!

 1. Look at your phone's history to see which apps are using most of your battery, which will give you a good idea of where your time is going too. On an iPhone you can check that under settings, battery, last 10 days, show battery usage by app. Note which you apps are using most often.

2. Review all of the apps you have. Delete any that you absolutely never use or don't recognize.

3. Note the apps that you use every week but aren't on your list from #1 above. Those should go on your home screen so you don't have to scroll through pages to find them.

4. Think of and note the groups you want to have for similar apps. For example I have a "social" folder for all of the social media apps I use, and another called "grocery shopping" that contains instacart, the list app I use, and the Alexa app because my kids tell Alexa what we need to buy. There's also a "listening" group that contains Audible, Podcasts, Breethe for meditation, and a white noise app. You get the idea!

5. Start moving your apps into folders. Go through each and every app on your phone and decide if it needs to be deleted, moved into a folder, or left on its own.

6. Move the folders of apps you use most often to your home screen.

7. Make sure the apps that are not in folders and are used most often are on your home screen.

8. Evaluate your background image, do you need to change it? If so, do it now. Going to settings will allow you to set a plain black background, or a stock photo.  

Done! Relax! Pick up your phone 2000 times a day and think "dang I'm so glad my phone is clean and clutter free! I'm a genius for spending less than 21 minutes for doing that!"