E-Clutter, It’s a Thing

I’ve written in the past about my struggle with stuff.  When I need something (like a vaporizer) I want to have one handy.  However, I don’t like having a lot of stuff around (hey, when was the last time we used this vaporizer?) and I don’t like clutter.  Over the past couple years I’ve done a fair amount of purging and I try to maintain it  – for example February is Clean the Closets month (and since it’s the 28^th, I should probably have my head buried in a closet rather than my computer, but I digress). 

The digital age has certainly helped in eliminating clutter from many homes.  We have receipts sent to our email, pay our bills electronically, read our news and do our research online.  (Anybody else remember having a full set of encyclopedia’s sitting in a bookcase in the living room?)  Although this is a great relief to my kitchen counter, I now have e-clutter, which is a problem of its own.

Email.  I currently have 522 emails in my personal Gmail account.  These are in my inbox and do not include emailed receipts or family messages that I have dragged over into electronic folders for future reference or posterity.  I try to keep my messages managed and I like to keep it down to one ‘page’, but it’s tough.  The last thing I want to do when I get home from working on a computer all day is hop on the computer and sift through MORE emails, most of them impersonal.  I unsubscribe to ‘junk’ as fast as I can, but it just keeps coming in and you never know when you’re going to need a Bath & Body Works coupon.  In any case, Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever has become my email theme song as every time I open my email I hear in my head, “I don’t know where they come from, but they sure do come.”

Book-marking.  In browsing land, this has nothing to do with books.  Designed to be a convenience, this function of saving your place in an article to read again – or truth be known, read it for the first time – is a curse to me.  I bookmark so many things for later and rarely revisit them.  My mom used to have articles clipped from newspapers or magazines littering her kitchen table or counter waiting for her to read later or show to one of her visiting children.  I have to admit that as much as I pride myself on my clutter free counter, my open browser tabs and email folder marked ‘To Read’ hold way more articles than she ever dreamed of clipping.  And don’t even get me started about Facebook videos I save to watch later or the ‘Watch’ lists on my streaming services.  I’m going to have to have surgery again with 6 -8 weeks of bedrest to even make a dent in the shows that I’ve marked on Netflix to watch later.  I just really need to start watching instead of marking.  I can spend my entire evening TV time watching trailers and deciding what I want to watch in the future.  Oops!  Time for bed, and I haven’t watched a thing.

Pictures.  I’ve written about this before.  Pictures have been on my physical clutter list.  Albums and shoeboxes full of pictures that I needed (and actually still do need) to organize and store electronically.  I have scanned a bushel of pictures and now they are one big disorganized ELECTRONIC mess.  I tried to scan by year, but some are in folders and some are not.  I miss the labels on the back in my mother’s hand, identifying the people in the frame.  (Why I am I keeping pictures of people I can’t name myself is something I’ll have to sort out in a future therapy session.)  And what about the pictures on my phone?

• 

• 

• 

I have 2,509 photos and 51 videos on my phone!  Willow trees, grocery lists, puzzles, my dogs, your dogs, and dogs I don’t know.  I have pictures of memes I want to share later and pictures I’ve taken to share in my blog that I no longer need.  I take pictures of books at the bookstore intending to read reviews on-line later.  I see things during the day that I want to share with MOH, so I take a pic and text it to him.  I have a picture of my perpetually clean-shaven boss sporting a beard during the pandemic shut-down, a picture of an old newspaper clipping of my dad that a friend of the family sent to me, a picture of my scar after my surgery (don’t worry, I won’t share – I don’t even want to look at it myself), a fabulous picture of my Uncle Jack that one of my cousins posted on Facebook, and a couple awkward family photos that make me laugh every time I see them.  I would guess that half of these can be deleted without a second thought, but then why haven’t I?  The advantage AND disadvantage of e-Clutter is that it is out of sight and out of mind.   

• 

• 

• 

And finally, what will happen to my e-Clutter when I die?   Will anybody be able to find it?  Will anyone know it’s there?  I suppose that’s a millennial advantage.  Instead of my son having to sort through and  clean out my clutter, he can just let it RIP in The Cloud.