De-Cluttering Electronic Clutter

I must confess I am not very good at cleaning up electronic clutter. We recently backed up our computer, and there are quite a number of documents and images that are no longer necessary or useful – the exact definition of clutter!

Image by Luis Llerena

In my mission to clean up my electronic clutter, and I intend to use the following strategies:

1. Unsubscribe from e-mail lists. This is perhaps one of the most useful tips on avoiding electronic clutter in the first place. I used to just delete unwanted e-mail, but now I take the trouble to find the link at the bottom of the message and actually unsubscribe myself from mail I don’t have time to read or am no longer interested in receiving. It has made a massive difference to my inbox!
2. Delete items that are no longer necessary.  I tend to hoard up e-mails that have been read in case I want to read them again. However these must really go as well as blurry and duplicate photographs and documents that are outdated and no longer useful.
3. File e-mails, documents and photographs efficiently.  I am quite good at keeping documents and e-mails in labeled folders but somehow our photographs have got into a mess. I think it will be helpful to get all digital photos in one place and file them in folders that make sense (either in date order or by occasion).
4. Keep back-ups. This needs to be a scheduled or regular routine, not a random and haphazard event. I am quite good about keeping electronic photos in more than one place, but it needs to be a more intentional process. If backing –up is routine then cleaning up before backing up might also become routine.

These strategies seem simple, but I suspect like all clear ups they might end up being time consuming and require a lot of thought.  But as with all clean ups, I am sure the time and effort will yield results and get easier as it becomes more routine.

What are your tips for keeping on top of electronic clutter? What are your thoughts on how to keep effective back-ups of photos and documents?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Last year in December, my daughter encouraged us to set up a recycle station. We already had a good system in place for recycling paper, but the rest of our efforts were a bit haphazard! I was keen to keep all the recycling in the garage and out of the way, but she was much wiser than me and suggested we keep it closer to the house so that it would be more accessible. So we now have an assortment of bins and containers tucked in next to our laundry for which she has made suitable labels.

Having a system of bins and boxes in place that we use for recycling has greatly improved our recycling efforts, and made a big difference to the amount of rubbish that has to go to the municipal landfill. We have even started checking the plastic packaging on our groceries to see if it can be recycled! Recycling is also actually a lot easier than I thought it would be, even though the boxes do sometimes get a bit too full before we do a visit to the recycling center.

At present our recycling efforts include the following:

• A wormery, in which we put vegetable scraps from the kitchen as well as moistened newspaper pages to keep them from dehydrating. This produces compost and “worm tea” which we can use on our plants.
• A paper bin for cardboard and paper, that has been shredded up if it contains any personal information.
• A plastics bin, which I find a bit difficult to manage as I can seldom remember which types of plastic can be recycled. I think I need to add a note on the bin to remind me what can go in it.
• A big box to contain glass that can be recycled. We have to take the glass to a special recycling center as it is not included in the local municipal rubbish collection service.
• A bin for cans, which are also taken to the recycling center when we go to drop the glass.
• In our laundry we also have an ice-cream tub where we collect used batteries and another tub for light bulbs that are no longer functional. These have to go to a different recycling center in a local supermarket.

Now we need to work on imaginative ways to re-use and reduce our consumption to try and cut down on waste even more if we can. We are going through a severe drought at the moment, so in particular our water consumption is something we are working on reducing as much as possible.

Is the mantra “reduce, re-use, recycle” familiar to your household? Do you have any tips for living in a more environmentally friendly manner?