Monday, January 12, 2015

Organize Your Life: Phone

Life is just easier when your phone is in order.  It’s less cluttered, easier to find things and you have more room to take new pictures and add new apps.  Your phone is probably one of your most used possessions (and maybe you never actually put it down), so follow these tips to make the most out of it:

·      First, back up your phone and save all your favorite pictures to your computer.  Then delete any pictures you don’t need on your phone.  Save the funny ones you took on nights out with your friends, but get rid of the puppy pictures you saw on Twitter and sent to your best friend.  You probably don’t need a million selfies taking up space on your phone, either.  (Especially if a lot of them are very similar.  Duck lips in a mirror selfie that was clearly taken in a bathroom with the flash on is never cute…) 

·      Delete videos you don’t need as well.  You can save them to your computer first so they’re not gone forever, but how often do you really watch back those short clips you took at a concert?
·      You might also want to delete old contacts.  You’ve probably gone through your contacts list more than once and realized you hadn’t spoken to many of the people on there in years.  (Or you don’t even remember who some of those people are…)  Get rid of anyone you don’t talk to and aren’t likely to in the future.  (You probably don’t need the number for “Green Shirt Guy” you met at a bar you went to freshman year.)

·      Now delete all the apps you don’t use/need.  (Six photo editors?  Really??)

·      Once you’ve cleared your phone of all the things that were just cluttering it up, reorganize your apps.  Put everything in an order that makes sense for you.  For example, if you have an iPhone, put your four most-used apps on the bottom bar (for me that’s messages, Safari, phone, then camera) for quick access.  Then figure which of the rest of your apps should be left standing alone and which should go into folders.  (I put all the things I rarely use in folders so they take up less space on the screen, such as the calculator, compass and voice memos.  I also put the contacts app in a folder since that can also be accessed from the phone button.)

·      Organize the apps you left out of folders by type and amount of use.  I kept all the standard iPhone apps (like photos, the app store and music) on the first homepage, social media/lifestyle apps on a second homepage, and photo editing/miscellaneous apps on a third.  On each page I put the apps in order based on how often I open them.  For example, on my first homepage I have the calendar, photos, reminders and notes in the first row since I use them all the time, and by the bottom of the page I have weather, music and FaceTime since it’s extremely rare that I use those at all.  (Furthermore, for social media I have Twitter right at the top of the page since I’m on there 24/7 {@pink_fridays, btw} and some fashion apps at the bottom since I love them but I don’t necessarily use them daily.)

·      Finally, turn off push notifications for unnecessary apps!  Anything that alerts you regularly but doesn’t really need much attention (I’m looking at you, Trivia Crack) does not need notifications turned on.  Part of organizing your life is controlling chaos, and it’s truly much more peaceful when your phone isn’t going off all day to let you know you have new texts, missed calls, Twitter mentions, Facebook notifications, dozens of Snaps from that girl that takes too many selfies, etc… 


If you read this on your phone, let us know in a comment!  ;-)


~Alyssa 

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