Let’s play “raise a finger”! You know the rules: Keep your fist up and unfold a finger every time you agree with one of the five statements below:
- The thought of not checking your phone first thing in the morning makes you anxious. It’s just a quick look; what’s wrong with it? (raise a finger!)
- If you hear a notification sound coming from your phone and aren’t sure what it is about, you do everything you can to get to that phone and check what’s happening. Even a glance counts.
- You scroll on social media any chance you get: while eating alone, on the subway, waiting in a queue, waiting for the eggs to boil… Any. Chance. You. Get.
- You grab your phone for a quick social media scroll, and an hour later, you are still on it!
- You actually feel stressed, restless, and irritable daily, but you refuse to admit that part of the problem is that you compare yourself to every person you meet online.
I know! All five are up (or at least 4 of them). This 14-day digital declutter and detox is for you. Warning: I am not asking you to stop using your phone or stop going on social media.
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Why Doing a Digital Declutter and Detox Challenge
This challenge is focused on giving you three things only:
- Clarity – You will get a clear understanding of how digital habits affect your overall well-being.
- Control – You will feel empowered by having control over how much and how you use your social media and digital devices.
- Balance – You will establish a healthier and more balanced relationship with technology. And you will have more time to do some fun activities in real life.
Here are four reasons to take this challenge:
- Mental health – You want to reduce anxiety, stress, or depression (all linked to excessive digital consumption)
- Productivity – You want to break the cycle of procrastinating (this digital detox and declutter challenge will pair very well with my 4-week “stop being lazy” challenge right here)
- Self-discovery – You want to reconnect with who you were before you got obsessed with the online world, re-discover your passions, find new interests, and pursue new hobbies.
- Relationships – You want to start establishing more meaningful connections and relationships with the people in your life and/or meet new friends.
14-Day Digital Declutter and Detox Challenge
Before you go ahead and enjoy this challenge (I hope), remember that you can:
- Adjust tasks to fit your needs (after all, I do not know you personally and have generalized most common struggles out there)
- Switch days around depending on your schedule and lifestyle
- Send it to a friend so you can go through this together (it’s always more fun to have someone you can talk to)
Day 1-2: Social Media Audit
Day 1: Note how much time you spend on each app on your phone. You can do that in seconds by using the data on your device.
Apple users can easily do that through Settings -> Screen time -> See All App & Website Activity
Android users can do that by tapping on Settings -> Digital Wellbeing & Parental controls.
Day 2: Now that you know which apps take the most of your time, you want to evaluate which apps make you feel good about yourself and which don’t. No, I will not ask you to delete them; that is a personal decision I have nothing to do with.
For example, a simple check can show me I’ve spent over 2 hours on my Kindle app today. This is a lot of time to be “digital”, but it is Kindle, and I read either something self-development-related or something fun and exciting. However, my hour of TikTok consumption does make me dizzy – my head is buzzing with thoughts.
Day 3-4: Unfollow and Unsubscribe
Day 3: Unfollow or mute accounts that don’t add value or negatively impact your mood. This one will take a while, but you want to be mindful enough not to start scrolling through the accounts you actually like. You can go back to them later.
Day 4: Unsubscribe from unwanted email newsletters and marketing lists. If your email has over a thousand unread emails (like my husband’s), you might want to work 10 minutes a day on this one (unlike my husband, who just chose to ignore the numbers).
Day 5-6: Notification Management
Day 5: Turn off non-essential notifications from apps and social media. The only notifications I receive are for received messages and one of the emails where I keep an eye on my Etsy shop.
Day 6: Think very well if you could shrink the “checking” time for emails and/or social media apps to once a day (e.g. mornings, evenings, lunch breaks, while commuting with the subway). You have nothing “to do” today, you just have to “think” about it well.
Day 7-8: Declutter Your Device
Day 7: Delete apps you no longer use. Organize the remaining apps into folders.
Day 8: Clear out photos and files. I am not sure how Android works, but with iPhone, I can go through all sections separately (check screenshots only, videos only, files I’ve received through social media, and so on). That makes it easier to keep track on what’s done.
Day 9-10: Mindfulness
Day 9: I hope you’ve already discovered what the best time to stay on your phone is. Today is the day to start implementing it.
Day 10: When you feel the urge to mindlessly scroll on social media (for five minutes only #yeahright), switch to a healthy activity (reading, cleaning, writing lists, petting your dog).
Day 11-12: Emails
Day 11: Create folders and/or labels to organize emails effectively.
Day 12: Set up filters/rules to automatically sort incoming emails.
Day 13-14: Reflection and Momentum
Day 13: Reflect on all of the work you’ve done so far. You got rid of accounts that affect your mental health negatively, deleted old photos and useless screenshots, (most likely) re-discovered forgotten memories and DIY project ideas, systemized your email to work for you, and got clear with your values when it comes to digital use… and much more.
Day 14: Keep the momentum going and plan how to maintain these healthy habits. You might want to save this post and revisit it in a few weeks. What if you set a reward for yourself for keeping up with your new-found boundaries a month from now?
Blogger, dreamer, procrastinator, and lover of everything soul-touching. My mission is to make you laugh, provoke your thoughts, light up your day and inspire you to fall in love with life and yourself.
