Organize Your Digital Life - Personal Life Workbook

Organize Your DIGITAL LIFE PERSONAL LIFE VERSION

WHAT TYPES OF DIGITAL FILES DO YOU USE ? Our computers and phones typically hold many forms of digital files including photos we take and share, and music, movies, books, podcasts, and games that you paid for. There are some paid items that you may only access to as long as the content is available (or while you still pay your subscription) and others that you own outright. Consider the files that you'd like to be more organized Photographs Apps Contacts Emails Music Games Books Podcasts Software Courses Movies

YOUR DIGITAL FILING HABITS Thinking about each category of file, how organized are you from 1 to 10 when 1 is a complete mess and 10 is I know exactly where everything is? Photographs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Apps 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Contacts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Emails 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Music 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Games 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Books 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Podcasts 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Software 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Courses 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Movies 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

YOUR DIGITAL DEVICES Your personal files may be scattered across many devices. You may have a new computer, but the old one is still working and may have old files on it you wish to keep. You will probably have a phone, maybe an iPad or tablet, an eReader. You may have hard drives and old phones to contend with. You may also have items on USB drives, SD cards and microSD cards. List your devices here DEVICE CONTENTS

DEVICE CONTENTS

PERSONAL DOCUMENTS You need a good structure for the thousands of documents you have on your computer. Although, like email, you will have a great search function, it's much more time consuming to locate a particular item among a vast sea of files than in an email. Files are typically much longer than emails and in many different formats. Create categories of files called folders based on the topics you deal with, for example, you might have separate folders for work files and personal files at the highest level. Then under the personal folder you might have one folder for health, another for finance, another for each of your hobbies. Some ideas to consider for brainstorming on the next page. Career Development Personal Development Health Family Hobbies Travel Children Pets Volunteer Work

Brainstorm the folder categories you need

SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS Review your social media accounts regularly and consider which ones you use and which ones you don't. ACCOUNT USED FOR / WHEN USED

ACCOUNT USED FOR / WHEN USED

If you no longer use some of your social media accounts, you can either leave them where they are but delete them from your computer/phone or delete all traces of them so they don't have any data on you. To do this you will need to follow the instructions in each account. ACCOUNT REMOVE FROM DELETE DELETED DATE PC/PHONE (Y/N) COMPLETELY? (Y/N)

FAVORITE YOUTUBE/TIKTOK CHANNELS Which channels do you enjoy as pure entertainment? If you're subscribed to any which you no longer use, unsubscribe from them. List the ones you use for personal enjoyment here if you want a reminder to check them out:

FAVORITE BLOGS, GROUPS, AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS Which blogs, groups, and Instagram/Pinterest/Facebook, etc. accounts do you like to follow? List them here if you would like a reminder to check them out. If you're following any you no longer enjoy, unfollow them. URL TITLE WHY I LIKE THIS

FAVORITE PODCASTS Which podcasts do you like to listen to? Unsubscribe from any that you no longer like. List the ones you like to listen to here if you want a reminder to check them out:

PHOTOS

PHOTOS 1 Delete low quality photographs 2 Reduce duplicate photos. You don't need six takes of one shot. Keep the best one or two. 3 Set a weekly or monthly review date to do this. I will review my photos on ___ days/the first/last ___ nth day of the month (delete and complete as appropriate) 4 Enjoy the good ones with an auto rotate setting as your PC wallpaper, create a photo book or use a digital display device. I will enjoy my photos by

5 Share photos with others who would appreciate them. You can send particular sets of photos to them or create an online account to share. How I will share photos DESCRIPTION WHO SHARED (date)

BOOKS

BOOKS You may have several apps for your online book collection. That's because not all the services play ball with each other. You may also have a local library subscription or a subscription to a service like Kindle Unlimited. MY SUBSCRIPTIONS HOW/WHERE TO ACCESS ON PHONE/PC/EBOOK READER

If you like to catalog all your books, brainstorm the categories you will use. Consider genre, topic, author. You can use a spreadsheet or an app to catalog your books: This is the app I will use ___________________________

Delete books that you will not read/use again from your device so that you can find those you want to read more quickly. If you bought from an online book store, they will be easily available again in your account if you change your mind (as long as you delete from your device and not from your account.) Review your digital book collection monthly. I first reviewed my online collection on ________________ REVIEW DATES

MUSIC

MUSIC You may subscribe to a service and all your music is kept there but you will probably have some on your PC and some on your phone. You may subscribe to a service and all your music is kept there but you will probably have some on your PC and some on your phone. Where I keep additional music tracks (consider both your PC/tablet and Phone) If your music is scattered on your PC, start a brand new folder dedicated to your music collection. If you have a lot of music, you may prefer to break this down into genres. Find all your music and pop it in there. There will be a search to do this (for example in Windows 10, kind:music in search will bring up all music files) Delete tracks that you don't listen to as you sort your music files out. My music folder is _________________________________

SERVICES I SUBSCRIBE TO Organize your favorites into playlists. MY PLAYLISTS

PODCASTS

PODCASTS Which podcasts do you like to listen to? Unsubscribe from any that you no longer like. List the ones you like to listen to here if you want a reminder to check them out:

MOVIES

MOVIES / TV SHOWS If you have these on your PC keep them in a folder reserved for movies, typically available by default. Complete the meta data so that they are easy to search for. My movie folder is _________________________________ Note your subscriptions here: MY SUBSCRIPTIONS HOW / WHERE TO ACCESS

Keep a watch list of movies and TV shows that you want to catch before they disappear. NAME OF MOVIE/ WHERE LAST DATE VIEWED TV SHOW AVAILABLE TO VIEW

GAMES

GAMES Each game typically has its own app on your computer or phone. You may stop playing some games as you grow bored with them and then enjoy them all over again when you haven't played for a while. Delete those that you will never play again. List here what you have GAME MANUFACTURER HOW TO ACCESS LAST PLAYED

GAME MANUFACTURER HOW TO ACCESS LAST PLAYED

NOTES





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