Lockdown has meant that many of us now have a lot more free time than we had before our usual routines were upended. Commutes to work have been eradicated, and the fact that bars, cinemas, shops, restaurants and cafes have closed for the foreseeable future has meant that we’re now looking for new things to do to keep our minds occupied while at home.
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As the weather has gradually been getting sunnier in the UK over the past few weeks, a lot of us have been using this time to do a spring clean of our homes. Not only does the warmer weather in springtime motivate us to sweep away the cobwebs of the winter months, but it’s also a great way to better appreciate the spaces that we’re currently required to spend so much time in. If we have to stay inside our homes for most of the time for the next few weeks or months, then it makes sense for these spaces to be as pleasant for us to live in as possible.
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As well as cleaning your home, have you considered also decluttering your tech as another productive activity? If you consider the number of unnecessary apps or data that you have on your devices, you may have reached an excessive amount to the point where you’re using up all of your storage, or it’s taking you longer than necessary to find what you’re looking for on your devices.
The first step to decluttering your phone is managing your Notifications settings. Getting constant banners on your screen looks messy and can be very distracting. Find out how to disable Push Notifications here.
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Most of us are not very good at deleting photos and videos from our devices’ albums. They often take up a huge amount of space on our devices, and often we cannot face the tedious task of going through them all. However, if you do, you’re likely to find that many of your saved photos and videos are not essential to keep. For instance, you might have screenshots saved from conversations you’ve been having but are now no longer relevant, or maybe you took a hundred selfies to try and capture the perfect shot. Either way, if you’re serious about decluttering your device, deleting your photos should be one of your first steps.
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When you disable notifications, you can also disable notifications for your emails specifically. However, disabling your notifications will only solve half the problem of your irritating inboxes. Make sure that you take the time to go through your emails and unsubscribe from all the companies’ newsletters and marketing messages that you don’t want to read. You should also make sure that you do this by hand rather than using an automated service, as these have privacy issues. Trust us, you’ll be so satisfied to have an inbox that only has emails that are relevant to you.
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Hear us out, we’re not telling you that you need to delete all your social media accounts. However, chances are that you may have one or two that you know massively decrease your productivity and drain your energy after endless scrolling (we’ll leave it to your imagination to guess what apps we are referring to). We would recommend using a computer for this as some sites require you to use them to delete accounts.
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It’s easier than ever before to have a huge array of apps on our devices, but the problem comes when we’ve accumulated a vast number of apps that we rarely use, if at all. This is especially the case now that we’re all in lockdown. For instance, do you need apps for travelling like Skyscanner, or for food and drink like Open Table for booking tables at restaurants? We would argue no, you don’t, at least for now.
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Once you have tidied up your devices, it will make them a lot easier to sell. This is because once you have the data on all your devices that you actually want, it makes it easier to transfer what you have to another device, before resetting the device you are selling back to factory settings. Take a look at our guide for preparing your phone to be put back on the market, or if you want a new phone, take a look at the devices on offer on the Refurbished and Contracts sections of our site.
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