How I Organize My Digital Life: My 3 Digital Pet Peeves

I came across the Digital Lifestyle community and found a very interesting prompt for this week about digital pet peeves. I always use my phone and laptop – I think everyone does that and makes it part of our lives. So, it is normal for us to have “rituals and rules” in our digital space.

So, to participate in this prompt, I want to share the things that annoy me with my digital life.

Disorganized phone

I don’t really want a disorganized life. I want to organize my phone, especially the apps and folders so it will be easy for me to find the app that I need. I had these categories before:

• School. All apps related to school and learning will be here such as Google Sheets, Dictionary, Google Classroom, Google Drive, etc.
• Work. I write as a freelancer and as a blogger on my website and Hive, so all apps related to my work go here such as Google Docs (sometimes I use it for school), Gmail, Canva, Brave browser, Involve Asia, etc.
• Finance. All of my digital banks and e-wallets will go here including the Hive keychain and non-custodial wallet.
• Social. This is mostly for entertainment and communication such as Discord, Messenger, YouTube, Reddit, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
• Others. These are the apps that I seldom use such as shopping apps, games, etc.

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They have different purposes and I always try to avoid the Others and Social categories because it often consumes my time unproductively. However, I already changed my launcher so it will make my phone look more a minimalist which will be explained on my next pet peeve.

Full-color display

It hurts my eyes (figuratively) to see my phone disorganized and with a lot of colors. If I can choose a theme with only black and white color, I will use it. This is why I am now using a different launcher called minimalist phone.

From my own definition, this launcher will make your phone look dumb and boring by removing all the icons of the app and sticking to a text-only launcher. This app aims to increase your productivity by making your phone boring and giving you the privilege of blocking the apps that consume your time unproductively.

Recently, I found myself spending much of my time on Instagram and Reddit which eats much of my time, and end up not finishing anything from my to-do list. This is when I decided to use the launcher again and try to be productive.

• Stop Procrastination Now! (A Simple Guide That You Need for Productivity)
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I am now blocking my apps for at least 24 hours if I know that I have urgent tasks that I need to finish. This helps me to increase my productivity and finish my tasks on time without any hindrance. This also blocks all the notifications from your chosen apps that you can customize so you can avoid checking your notifications that will usually end up in mindless scrolling.

Unread and spam emails

I really hate spam emails; I always unsubscribe to useless emails that I don’t like. Most of the time, it is only the marketing strategy of companies to raise awareness about their business. But usually, when I know that it doesn’t contribute to me, I unsubscribe.

Also, I am not sure if this is also a pet peeve but I feel uncomfortable when there are unread messages on my email. I usually mark all as read when I know that I have an unimportant email; sometimes I delete them.

I also use different email accounts to keep my digital life organized from work, finance, and personal categories. This way, I can easily identify which email should I read first and sort them depending on their urgency.

Overall, I really want an organized setup digitally. This applies to both mobile and laptop – I also want an organized life in person. I always want to declutter and reset my digital life weekly, monthly, or anytime I want when I feel uncomfortable with my setup.