Ok, before we begin, full disclosure, I’ve not read that Marie Kondo book. I’m constantly in a state of wishing to declutter my life, but I still can’t get around to chucking out old mugs and brochures for one off crappy art events and the rest. If I so much as gazed at that Marie Kondo book, I’d be just like a slug reading the Communist Manifesto, challenged to begin a revolution I’m not ready for yet. But what I do know about dear Marie, from my sister’s colour-coded knicker drawer, is that organising your life organises your soul and helps you to be happy and free. You’re probably reading this on a phone that’s nagging you to sort out your storage even though, the other night, a drunken you deleted your apps on nights out so you could record a film of nonsense and whoops you just lost all your photos because your phone is now cleaning itself out without letting you know, so without further ado:
1.Don’t be scared of the Cloud
While even the most Luddite of my mates will extol the virtues of eBay to me amid my shrieks of “It just looks like homework!”, I’m sure I’m not the only one who doesn’t want the Cloud (or any rival remote storage facility) automatically storing ALL of my photos. In 2014, hundreds of nude images of famous women were leaked by some guys who thought it was lol and then gazed at by a world who again, thought it was lol. And I started to wonder what on earth technology was for? Technology, by definition, is anything invented by humans to make our lives easier. But if technology serves to help humans in harming other humans, what’s the point? Plus, it’s far easier to apply this sort of lofty wondering about the ways in which humans’ decency has yet to catch up with the technology we’ve created than it is to learn how to use the Cloud as a late adopted. Be patient, use all the passwords at your disposal and, just in case, until revenge porn is taken seriously by the various authorities meant to criminalise it, be judicious about putting stuff on your phone.
2. Stop taking photos of crap
There is just so much crap to take photos of. Maybe it’s a misguided advert that’s just bleakly offensive. Perhaps there’s a lolsy bit of graffiti, or a beautiful sunset, or a baby animal you’ve seen from 10 feet away. And sometimes there’s a person wearing something stupid who looks maybe a tiny bit like someone who the person I fancy knows as well so I can take a photo of them and text it to that person who I fancy so they fancy me back! First of all, stop taking photos of strangers, that’s creepy and rude. Secondly, try to live in the moment, not every single image needs to be documented and more often than not, if there are other people there, with professional cameras, to take photos of this wonderful thing you’re gazing at, your photo won’t be the best. Speaking as someone who has probably lived through their last camping festival, I’d happily burn all my old photos of festival performers if it meant I got however many extra of my friends dicking about in return.
3. Go back and edit crap photos
Instagram has revolutionised how we take photos. Instead of the 60 or 120 photos we’d take on a night/holiday and then upload to Facebook, we now take 100 just to upload one to Instagram. This means you have to go back and get rid of the crap ones. It’s boring, but a phone that doesn’t work is far boringer, and think of all the crap photos you won’t get to take when your phone storage is entirely full?
4. Stop screen grabbing articles
See a really great/funny/lolsy/charming/relatable article on The Debrief that someone’s posted to their Facebook page? The easiest way of saving it for later is to do a quick screen grab, so that you can go back to the link later on, right? Well, honestly, when was the last time you actually went back in your screen grabs and then typed the link into your browser so you can read the article? There’s an app called Pocket (it’s also an extension on laptops and desktops) and you treat it a lot like Pinterest but for links. See something that looks like you really should read it so you can post it on social media later? Don’t muck about emailing it to yourself (save yourself the embarrassment of hearing the “ping” of an incoming message and assuming anyone other than yourself has sent you an email), just bookmark it on Pocket. It works across all sorts of apps (Twitter, Facebook, Safari) and you can tag up the articles by topic e.g. “something to read before bed” “something depressing to read before bed”.
5. Stop letting your WhatsApp groups intrude on your camera roll
You’ve got a lot of friends, great. But as well as muting all notifications (don’t look at me as if you haven’t, unless you’re on one of my WhatsApp groups - in which case, just WhatsApp me if you’re mad, ok?) you need to make sure that your phone doesn’t save all the images from your WhatsApp. Here’s a guide to how to turn that function off.
6. Back it up
Don’t roll your eyes like this is obvious. Of course it’s obvious, but it doesn’t mean anyone actually does it. Have your laptop (let’s face it, it’s a laptop) somewhere next to your bed, slowly eking out a download, back-up and restore while you change your bedsheets and look, you’ve done two tasks that are equally pleasure-free in the short term yet monumentally beneficial and comforting in the long term! Just like falling asleep into some crisp sheets is cheering, so too is being able to use your phone safe in the knowledge that everything is backed up just in case you get mugged/your phone falls down the toilet/your phone does not QUIT nagging you to sort your storage out and slowly deteriorates in your hand.
7. Get a phone with more storage
It sucks, right? That the slow drip, drip of technology means we have to constantly work and play on items that are built to break or simply be out of date by the time we get used to them? But conversely, we now have the ability to do so very much with just a few taps of our fingertips. We can speak to the world, we can capture a moment, we can speak to someone across the world should we wish. It’s a lot of power, but if it’s not enough storage, weigh up your options and look towards upgrading.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Uber Can Tell When Your Phone Is About To Run Out Of Battery
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.