Is your iPhone in need of a digital declutter? With apps so quick and easy to download. Cameras that snap multiple pictures for our convenience. All the messages that come in daily. Leads to an iPhone full of distracting clutter.
Are you ready to clean out all of that distracting clutter that we have on our iPhones today? Not yet, no worries save the link I’ll be here when you’ve blocked time on your calendar.
Let’s declutter your most-used device
Decluttering anything can be an overwhelming task. You can take this as fast or slow as feels comfortable to you, keep in mind it’s probably going to be a bit of a longer process.
Give yourself grace as it may not be something that you get done today. Although all you need to do is schedule some time in your calendar, and make sure you're doing a little bit every day.
Five minutes here, five minutes there and your iPhone will eventually be cleaned. Think of it more as a marathon than a sprint. Unless you’re into sprints my friend then go for it and get it decluttered now.
Contacts
How many contacts do you have on your iPhone? With our iPhones with us all the time, it so simple to add a contact here or there. We gather them up but do not always clean them out.
Oh my goodness, do you wonder how you ended up with so many contacts? Do you quickly find yourself wondering if you have the correct information or when was the last time you needed to reach out to the person?
Do you have a few duplicate contacts?
Not sure if you’re in a similar boat as me, with a collection of contacts from parents of the various club teams and groups that my children have been in over the years.
Now it’s decision time, do you want to delete them or take the time to reach out to that old contact to figure out if you even have the correct contact information for them.
To help with the decision here is a simple decision tree.
Ask yourself have you used this contact in the past year?
Yes, I’d say it’s a keeper.
No, ask yourself if you feel like you will ever need it again.
No is a delete.
Yes, keep it.
Messages
This may or may not need to be clean up on your iPhone. I’ve heard that people actually do delete messages as they come into the iPhone?
Is this a real thing?
If you’re a keeper of messages, this is the time to do back and delete all those old messages that you’ve been saving. How many do you actually need?
Should you need information for future reference. You could take a screenshot and same the image along with notes in your electronic storage. Such as OneNote, Evernote, or Notion.
Selecting one central location keeps from the constant need to search or rack your brain asking where you saved that nugget of information.
Photos/Videos
If this is a difficult one for you, start with the random screenshots. C’mon, I know you’ve got a few of these in your camera roll. Why is it so easy to take these? 😳
Really, are you deleting them? If I were to guess you’ve got your photos backing up automatically in the cloud someplace. If that is the case do you need to keep them all on my iPhone?
Don’t forget about your recently deleted folder in your photos. Any photo you delete will end up in your Recently Deleted Folder, make sure to select and delete all for the ultimate decluttered feeling.
Safari
Delete all the safari tabs or chrome browser tabs.
Turn Off Those Notifications
Do you really need to get a notification for each and every app you have on your iPhone? Do you want to clutter up your mind and keep getting all those distracting notifications?
Turning off notifications can be done bit by bit when it’s on your lock screen or it pops up, if you find yourself thinking do I really need to be notified by this? Go in and turn off the notifications.
It will feel so good when you pick up your iPhone and you only have a shortlist of notifications that you actually care about receiving.
Do you want to know one of those notifications that I have deemed to be not important?
Social Media.
I'm not sure what your feelings are on it, but receiving zero notifications for any sort of social media is very freeing. It allows you to stay in the present moment.
Fall in ❤️ with Do Not Disturb
If you find yourself getting off schedule and not getting the tasks done that should be done. Put your iPhone in do not disturb. With your iPhone in do not disturb it allows you to control your day and your time.
If you’re easily distracted and taken off course use Do Not Disturb. One of my weaknesses is people-pleasing, therefore my iPhone is in Do Not Disturb pretty much all the time.
It keeps me focused and not worried about activities that will distract me from my task list.
All the Apps
Everything and everyone wants you to download an app. Do you even know how many apps you have on your iPhone?
Friend, this is a great time to go through and delete all those apps. Heck, maybe delete all your apps on your iPhone. If you need it, it’s sitting in the cloud waiting for you. Easy peasy, it’s like decluttering 101 if you can easily replace it, declutter it.
With just a handful of apps, organize them with the most used apps in one location.
If you’re not wanting to start with a clean slate, you can easily see all your apps and the last time they were used by going into
- Settings
- General
- iPhone Storage
Scroll through and really look at all those apps. What can be deleted? You also have the option to Offload App. This will free up storage used by the app but keep its documents and data. Reinstalling the app will place back your data if the app is still available in the App Store. This is a safes option if decluttering makes you nervous. It is so easy to add it back at any time like the app wasn’t even decluttered.
One more thing
Delete your call logs, all the recent iPhone calls, missed iPhone calls, and voicemails. Can you think of one reason why you’ll need them?
iPhone Wallpaper
Here is a cute iPhone Wallpaper for your phone.
Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪
Here is the quick checklist:
- Contacts
- Messages
- Photos
- Screenshots
- Notification
- Delete Apps
- Organize Apps
- Do Not Disturb
- iPhone Call Records