I have been decluttering my life for some years now. In terms of material possessions I have reached a point where I consider I have enough. I have the essential now. I have a capsule wardrobe that works for me. I don't own physical books or CD's anymore. I prefer not having decorations on the walls of my home.
Right now I am focusing on the less corporeal items of my life. I've been critically evaluating my online activity for quite a while now.
After I read the book Deep Work by Cal Newport in 2016, a light bulb turned on inside my head that made me think: Am I too distracted? Are we too distracted?
And the answer is “Yes, we are distracted!”. The combination of cellphones and social media has dramatically changed my behavior towards technology and that is scary! I love technology, don't get me wrong. I grew up in the non-digital world and I remember when I connected to the Internet for the first time. The Internet was a marvelous unexplored space with enormous possibilities. It meant freedom! Democratic access to information! Connection!
And now I feel entrapped when I am online. I feel like I don't have control. I feel like I am inside a weird experiment where my choices are not my own. I feel like a victim. So I decided to take some action!
The Process
My decluttering process was like this:
Make a list of all the social media account that I have.
Log into the accounts and check the status: Have I been using it? Do I like it? What do I use it for?
Make a plan for each one of them, listing their purpose and what I want to do with them.
Delete the accounts I no longer use or update.
Reevaluate the accounts that I still use: can I unfollow/unfriend people/profiles? Delete/minimize the amount of information feeding my timeline.
Repeat step 5 regularly (I did every 2 months from 2016 to 2018).