Online hoarding? Tips for Decluttering smartphone please!Thousands of photos, emails…

[mechanicalpencil]

I have suspected adhd annd ocd and have always struggled massively with organsing things/ clutter etc. Currently I am struggling with keeping all my stuff on my phone under control. I have just bought a new iPhone and want to try and start as I mean to go on by setting myself some good habits.

How on earth do you manage to keep everything organised?

In particular photos… any tips for keeping them organised and under control? I have thousands of photos that I never seem to go back and edit/delete/organise.
For example I was thinking of maybe reviewing photos taken at the end of each day and putting them in folders? But I know I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the habit.

Also..tabs open… I always have 499/500 open at one time because each one is something that is very important and cannot be deleted until I have read it haha.

Trillions of emails…

Any tips? Feeling overwhelmed.

Thank you.

Once a week or whenever I think to do it, I type the date into the search function in photos (iPhone) and it brings up photos taken on that date going back years.

Somehow it’s much easier to be objective and get rid of photos I took last year than the ones that I took today and think might come in useful.

I go through a week or so at a time so it’s not overwhelming. I also pop some photos into albums as I’m doing it so I can find them again.

On the open tabs - there’s a setting that allows them to disappear after a certain amount of time. This is invaluable for me - also have adhd and cannot prioritise to save my life. It’s less of a disaster than you’d think!

@Theothername brilliant tips! I will definitely try both these things. Thank you.

any other tips from fellow ADHD ers?

I've been doing the date in the search function thing too this year. Every day I delete as many as possible photos taken on the same date.

Now and again I search for the word “unsubscribe” in my email, select all, delete and empty trash. I also can’t handle loads of emails in my inbox. So I archive each on when I’ve dealt with it. Easier than to focus on what I need to deal with. Archive seems less final than delete and the searching is really straightforward in gmail. I can’t handle the clutter. In January I delete anything over 7 years old at the same time as I shred old taxes.

Photos, I have a password protected blog for family photos. So every few months I choose a few to upload and delete the rest. Easier to choose what to keep than what to delete. But most of the photos on my phone are functional things like event flyers, posters, something I might want to make, recipes etc. I’m not a big photographer. Now and then apple try to get me to pay for more storage and that is a good reminder to clear out.

Tabs I have cured myself of. I downloaded pocket app for Firefox, clipped away to save things to read later, then gradually realised that I never logged in to read these things. So it gave me “permission” to stop the endless tab habit.

Real world clutter is more of an issue…

I have auadhd, I never really delete emails apart from obvious spam and unsubscribing occasionally from newsletters I don’t read anymore, if I need to dig something out I just use search.
for photos I back mine up to the cloud and try and delete screenshots, crap photos etc every couple of weeks.