Day 1
Earlier today, I found the perfect #floorcore shot and tried to take a photo of my new Pharrell x Adidas Human Race sneakers against these black and white hexagon-patterned tiles, but my phone told me I didn’t have enough available storage. Again. Instead of deleting one photo to make space, I had to delete fifty. By then the lighting was terrible.
I wanted to channel my anger into something productive, so I decided to write down my goal, “This time, I’m really buckling down and cleaning up my digital clutter.”
I feel so much better already.
Day 2
Before I fell asleep last night, I was adding some dream vacation spots to my Pinterest board. But then I realized, hey why not make a physical vision board. Bet no one has thought of that yet.
So today I’m arming myself with a corkboard, scissors, tacks, and magazines filled with women in power poses. I’ll also write out large motivational messages like “Take CTRL” and “Spam in both food and email forms are terrible for you.”
Day 3
While waiting in a two-hour line for a sushi doughnut, I received an alert: “This iPhone hasn’t been backed up in 62 weeks.” I took it as a sign from the universe to rethink storage options.
But backing up the phone on my desktop is a no-go. It will just create an extra file I will have to organize later, and I really want to start off on the right foot.
Maybe I should buy more iCloud storage. But do I want to upgrade to 50 GB for 99 cents a month? Or maybe, to be safe, I should get the 1 TB for $9.99 a month. I do take a lot of photos and videos. Oh, I’ll text Jess! She’s a computer engineer. She’ll know what to do.
Days 4 to 6
Jess hasn’t answered me yet. But I don’t want to call her because it’s not an emergency or anything. I’ll try and text her again later. She’s a very busy woman.
Day 7
Jess Instagrammed a photo of herself on the beach with the caption, “Getting my beach fix. #instagood #beachesbelike,” which means she has seen her phone. Ugh, this is all too much. I’m going to take a break and give myself a day to recoup.
Day 24
I got so caught up with life I completely forgot to continue this de-cluttering project. But don’t worry! After I freed up enough space to update my Postmates app (#DeleteUber), I vented to the food delivery guy, who suggested I download a meditation app to clear my mind. After a couple of breathing exercises and in-app purchases, I felt so in control, I decided to start from the very beginning, album “2012-02-05 001,” and delete anything I didn’t want to keep.
But after I got to album “2012-06-23 002” four hours later, I realized I wanted to keep everything. For example, IMG_0046 is a classic shot of my latte against a wooden table, but in IMG_0047 the shifting shadows really give the latte this mysterious look. I can’t delete any of these!
Day 72
Seriously, I’m really back now, and I won’t forget again. My virtual boxing instructor told me about Marie Kondo and I really wanted to order copies of her books. But since it’s a Saturday night, placing my Amazon order won’t actually go through until Monday anyway, so I’ll wait.
Day 74
You know what? I don’t really need to read “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up” or “Spark Joy.” I’m pretty sure I get the gist.
Day 74.5
I was going through the apps on my phone by opening each one and asking myself, “Does this spark joy?” The social media ones weren’t too difficult. I definitely kept Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. I was going to delete Twitter, but then how else would I get updates from the president? And none of the fitness apps gave me joy so I deleted all of them.
But then things got complicated. For instance, what do I do about Flappy Bird? It doesn’t matter that I haven’t opened it since 2014. Once I delete the app, I will never be able to attempt a score higher than 15 ever again. Ever.
Day 183
TIL Gmail has a storage limit. But that’s OK, because today I also signed up for a weekly newsletter on “Minimalism: How Living with Less is Really More.”
I feel like a new person already.