Helllloooo & happy 2018! It’s a few days into the new year so hopefully you’re still feeling energized & excited about your resolutions (maybe we can all make it February this time??) I’m personally not a big new year’s resolutions fan (if you are, more power to you!) but I do love a “clean sweep” at the beginning of every new year. Last year, I started 2017 by completely  cleaning out my room/closet which was awesome/refreshing (10/10 recommend). This year, I’m focused more on the digital part of my life. It started off a few weeks ago actually when I realized I deleted the same 10 junk emails out of my inbox every day. Every. single. day. I deleted the same emails without opening them. It got me thinking–why don’t I just unsubscribe so I don’t have to do this every morning? Yea, it took a little bit of time to click through all the annoying unsubscribe links, but I’m way happier now looking at my inbox.

So with that in mind, here are 5 easy ways to do a 2018 digital detox. Let’s face it, a large majority of our lives is digital so might as well make it a little more positive. Oh, and after you read this post, take a break & do something that doesn’t involve looking at a screen ;)

Unfriend & Unfollow

Ahhhhh I loooooove unfriending people on Facebook. I know that sounds super mean, but wow, it’s exhilarating clicking that “unfriend” button to that person who’s just annoying, negative, irrelevant to your life on social media. In high school, it was “important” to have a large number of friends. In the real world, you find it’s way better to have a smaller group of real friends than a bunch of fake acquaintances. So I try to mimic that on social media. We spend a crazy amount of time scrolling through our newsfeeds so get rid of the people who put you in a bad mood or whom you just don’t care about seeing updates from. It’s not that you don’t wish them a happy life, you just don’t really want to read their political Facebook rants anymore.

Delete Apps that don’t serve you

Finding yourself mindless scrolling through Instagram 13 times a day? Delete it. Really hate Bumble but you feel like you “should” be swiping right all the time? Delete it. Can’t stand seeing your ex’s Snapstories on the weekends? Delete, delete, delete it. The world won’t end if you don’t Insta, Tweet, Snap, Swipe, Post, etc. etc. If getting rid of apps will help your peace of mind, get rid of them. Or if deleting them seems a bit too extreme, turn off your notifications. We could all probably use a break from being bombarded by countless notifications anyways!

Clean up that inbox

Like I said before, simply unsubscribing to newsletters that I kept deleting did wonders. Now the only things that are in my inbox are things that I care about. I’m also a believer in having limited-to-zero emails in my inbox at all times. I love folders & organizing–having a bunch of unread emails is super overwhelming to me and feels cluttered. Take a few minutes (or maybe an hour depending on how bad your inbox is) and just start organizing. This blogger has some great tips on getting inbox zero to help get you started. 

Delete contacts & texts

Shout out to my friend Sam for this one. One day at lunch, we started going through our contacts and deleting people who 1. we had no idea who they were (just “John,” I’m sorry, I legitimately don’t remember you & not sure why I didn’t include your last name) 2. weren’t relevant anymore (i.e. cab #’s from college before the invention of Uber lol) or 3. we haven’t spoken to in 2 or more years (Sam actually did 6 months–savage). It was truly liberating. Again, now the only people in my phone are people whom I actually care about and want to talk to. Additionally, get rid of texts. You probably don’t need to have texts from that one guy from Tinder you went on one date with over a year ago. I have my texts automatically delete after 30 days so I don’t have to think about it. Plus, deleting texts frees up storage space on your phone which you know we all need.

Re-Organize Your Desk/Work Computer

Since most of us spend 8+ hours a day at our desks, might as well clean it up a little for 2018! Change up your desktop background to something inspiring, download Momentum (just discovered this–it’s super cool!), re-organize your folders that you swore you were going to re-organize before the end of the year. Small changes can make all the difference.

Happy detoxing. And again, seriously, stop reading this & take a break from screens aka the best digital detox of all. &.