4 Ways To Organize Your Digital Life
January 2, 2012
When you started blogging, it was a great outlet to let loose and connect with amazing, new friends. You blogged about daily life and your favorite subjects as you watched your subscriber list grow.
Soon after blogging, social media followed. You created your social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook, and your blog subscribers started to follow you there. You started building more connections, creating more opportunities, and having fun meeting new people.
After that, you may have started more blogs, writing for more people, joining new online communities, and within a short amount of time, found yourself overwhelmed in the digital realm.
With all of the social media outlets you manage, from your blogs, business accounts, family outlets, and more, it’s hard to find a place and time for everything. Organizing your digital world is your best bet to create amazing content and get the most out of your digital experience without burning out.
1. Take Control Of Your Email
Email is the first thing that takes up most of our time. The easiest way to organize your digital life is to get a handle on the ever-growing email inbox. We’ve signed up for mailing list and mailing list that was pushed in front of us. The first thing you need to do is dedicate an hour or so to unsubscribing from every list you are not using, which usually means almost all of them. You should also be automatically filtering your incoming emails to save your time and make organizing a breeze.
For me, I have regular emails from people I work with, from my bank, for different blogs, and so on. I create a filter so that every email from “[email protected]” will go straight to my “Finance” folder. This way, I can check those folders every other day or so instead of being bombarded with an overloaded inbox of things I don’t need to concern myself with at that moment.
2. Go Paperless
Going Paperless is not only great for their environment, but keeps your workspace nice and tidy (especially if you work from home). Can you imagine a desk free of paper.
I can not count how many times I’ve written down an email address, a funny blog idea, or a to-do item on a piece of paper and then completely lost it. Going paperless is a great thing to do because it keeps your ideas and thoughts together, and gives you an easy way to share your ideas with other people.
There are a lot of great software applications to choose from to keep files and notes digital. I use DropBox and Evernote for all of my spare notes and extra files. It’s great that they both also have applications for smartphones which really keeps me organized if I have a last minute idea or need to view a file away from my computer.
3. Re-Think Your Privacy
With rules changing all the time in Facebook, email addresses regularly being hacked, and identity theft on the rise, a good rule when it comes to organizing your digital life is securing your privacy. Keep separate accounts if you need to for close family and friends, never share personal information like addresses or where and when your children take ballet classes. With working online and blogging, even though you may not think about it, you are an easy target for online predators.
It’s also a good idea to change your passwords ever so often. I’ve made the mistake of sharing passwords when working on a project, forgetting about it, and having people access my account after the project was done.
4.Use Social Media Management Applications
Using social media account managers like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck is the best way to keep an eye on all of your accounts without having to click all over the Internet.
Before I started using these, I would miss out on vital information, be left out of fun conversations, and not have the time to really connect with people. This keeps all of your accounts together and in sync.
It’s very easy to start to feel overwhelmed and lose your purpose in the social media world, so my tip is just to find an organizational tool and method that works for you. Taking a day to completely re-organize your digital life as well as your goals is a great way to refresh your outlook on the digital world.
