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10-Minute Digital Declutter: The Simple Habit to Eliminate Technology Overload

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How to Declutter Your Digital Life and Stop Feeling Overwhelmed by Your Online Activities Don't like how your digital devices have become a disorganized mess? Tired of wasting hours on social media sites like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter? Or do you simply want to live a more simplified life? All these challenges are covered in the 10-Minute Digital The Simple Habit to Eliminate Technology Overload About 10-Minute Digital Declutter Bestselling authors S.J. Scott and Barrie Davenport will show you how to systematically manage all the emails, media, documents, photos, videos, and apps that consume your daily life. This book is written for the person who is starting to recognize the danger of digital noise, but doesn't know how to live in this modern world without feeling overwhelmed. It's also for those who need a system for the information they do want. Not only will you get back more time, you'll also discover core strategies for maximizing the time you spend in the digital world. If you have a desire to live an organized, simplified digital life -- and to reclaim some of the time you spend with digital devices -- then download 10-Minute Digital Declutter today. Why You Should Check Out 10-Minute Digital Declutter This book will be a good fit if Feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information on your devices Can't easily find the emails, documents, or websites you're looking for Have little time to tackle a big digital declutter and organizing project Feel embarrassed and drained by the clutter and disorganization Find yourself afraid to delete anything for fear you might need it one day Feel yourself giving away too much time and energy to the virtual world Would like to change your priorities and learn to step away from your devices more often Get complaints from your boss, spouse, or family members about your digital clutter or disorganization, or about the time you spend online Simply desire a more organized, minimalist lifestyle The bottom line? If you have a desire to live an organized, simplified digital life -- and to reclaim some of the time you spend with digital devices -- then you should check out 10-Minute Digital Declutter. Take action now! Pick up your copy today by clicking the Buy Now button at the top of this page

171 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 9, 2015

378 people are currently reading
600 people want to read

About the author

S.J. Scott

60 books260 followers
Wall Street Journal bestselling author SJ Scott wanted to be Luke Skywalker when he grew up.

Unfortunately his complete lack of physical grace and introverted mannerism's kept the earth from having their own Jedi Knight to battle the Sith menace.

Steve “SJ” Scott was born and raised in New Jersey. After finishing college with a degree in psychology he knew he needed to further his education or work on his latte making skills.

During a short stint in US Air Force, Scott was able to get his Master’s in business and then moved on to conquer the business world.

Scott then spent a couple of years working for a company not unlike the company depicted in Mike Judge’s film, “Office Space”. After doing his share of “TPS” reports, Scott swore he would never work for anyone but himself.

He spent the next few years making this happen. Making a decent living online and eventually pivoting to writing books, blogging and even podcasting.

Scott has written over 30 books, most of them in the "self-improvement" genre. An area that he is personally passionate about.

His books have been published in 12 different languages. So he is well on his way to world domination. However, in his heart of hearts he knows he will soon have to venture out into the universe and defeat the Sith menace.

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5 stars
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120 (25%)
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180 (37%)
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68 (14%)
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19 (4%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
Profile Image for tiff.
67 reviews25 followers
January 9, 2019
This book, although written in 2015, is outdated. By a lot.

Most everyone does these things. Backups, unique passwords. I don’t know who this book is for if I’m being honest.

As a programmer I read maybe 1/3 of this book and skimmed the rest.

Also as someone mentioned this is PC heavy. Most of these tasks I automate on my Mac with third party apps that, with my rules, will file, rename, move, tag, copy, sync, and delete files with specific parameters I set, for instance any photo in my downloads folder gets moved to my pictures folder. Any disk image in my downloads folder older than a week gets put in the Trash. When my trash is 2gb in size it is emptied automatically, etc.

These are the things we can do now. This book is for your grandma who doesn’t understand what technology is.
Profile Image for Lori.
941 reviews35 followers
October 31, 2017
Some resources listed and good opening points made about how we, as a society, are obsessed with digital media to the point that it is not even considered unusual to see a table of adults at a restaurant all typing into their phones instead of interacting with one another. Lots of recommendations for reducing social media clutter but as GoodReads is the social media where I am most active, that isn't really my problem. I have already purposely limited and restricted my social media interactions.

What I was looking for and expecting was more of a Marie Kondo practicum for dealing with my overwhelming inbox. Kind of a, "This is what you do/eliminate and why." While there is some of that with a few listed resources, I haven't found this book to be as practical as I had hoped. The 10 minute title is a bit misleading because the implementation of several of these strategies, as the author states, requires quite a bit of time commitment up front.

We'll see. If the resources listed prove to be helpful when I have a chunk of time to research them and implement those that may be useful, my rating could go up. But so far, the practical advice hasn't transformed much.
Profile Image for Thiago d'Evecque.
Author 7 books67 followers
January 11, 2016
Como a maioria dos livros de "autoajuda", mais especificamente sobre formação de hábitos, o conteúdo prático demora a ser apresentado. Precisamos passar por uma longa introdução de benefícios, pesquisas e anedotas sobre como o conteúdo do livro vai melhorar nossa vida. É como se o autor quisesse vender o livro pra quem já comprou. Eu já estou interessado, por isso estou lendo, sabe?

Mas isso não diminui a utilidade da obra. Gostei bastante dos princípios e das sugestões de organização. Tenho um problema sério relacionado à procrastinação e desordem digital. Favoritos, celular, tablet, desktop -- é tudo uma terra de Marlboro pós-apocalíptica, com arquivos espalhados e itens importantes misturados com gifs do twitter.

O livro aborda a organização por partes: redes sociais, arquivos do computador (com uma ótima sugestão de sistema de pastas), smartphones e e-mail. Os autores explicam passo a passo como ajeitar a bagunça em intervalos de 10 minutos e manter a casa digital arrumada permanentemente.

A forma como eles abordam a formação do hábito de organização me agradou muito. No final, eles sugerem que você escreva um "manifesto digital", com o objetivo de fixar a ideia da arrumação na cabeça.

Se procura algo sobre o assunto, recomendo a leitura.
Profile Image for Tara Brabazon.
Author 37 books477 followers
March 30, 2016
An engaging book - and another 'how to sort out your life on and offline' book. All the strategies I have read and heard before, but they are assembled into a strong and well structured package.

The area that is touched on at the start - that is the really important issue - is that there is an explosion of information through social media and content generation from users, but most of it is rubbish. So the meta-issue that is raised by the information explosion is not the amount of material but our incapacity to manage it. That concern is not assessed in this book, but is key to all modes of analogue and digital decluttering, and analogue and digital living.
Profile Image for Julia Mayhugh.
3 reviews1 follower
January 28, 2016
I could see someone who is totally lost with managing digital assets getting something out of this book, but as someone who works in technology, tips like "make a lot of backups" and "organize your files into logical folders," were just not very helpful. In fact, I didn't find any insight that I hadn't read elsewhere online -- 4 years or more ago. Also, Mac-users, be aware -- it doesn't ignore the Mac, but it's heavily PC-oriented.
Profile Image for Dianelw.
253 reviews5 followers
February 19, 2016
This book is a very quick read, with incredibly useful strategies for taking control of our digital devices. I've already made fast changes that really work.
Profile Image for Nancy.
1,576 reviews87 followers
March 8, 2016
Not much new. And boring. Some of the recommended apps are useless. But it made me think about clearing out a lot of equally useless stuff. So that's good.
Profile Image for Bookish Devil.
507 reviews71 followers
May 30, 2020
This book would benefit the millennials who have little or no knowledge about keeping their computer data in an organized fashion.

It starts off on an interesting note, astonishing us with some cool facts, studies, research findings, statistics of internet and it's related entities.

However, the core subject of the book seems very simplified and it doesn't offer any fantastical ideas. In my opinion, 80% of the tips are common stuff that we are already aware of. But then again, I feel like it caters to the needs of people who are new to this internet age. Children/Grandparents can read this book to understand the basic concepts and guidelines to maintain a clean file system.

Also, the ebook had so many links and references to online articles that can be accessed by the reader to know more about the particular concept/tool. The software suggested by the authors are verified ones and personally, I have been using them ever since I got my own computer.

I would have rated this higher if it had something really interesting to offer. But it's still a good book and it can be finished within 2 hours.

Bottom line: Young adults/Senior citizens who are exposed to computers/smartphones for the first time can make good use of this book to get the basics right.

Profile Image for LunaCSunshine.
9 reviews20 followers
January 23, 2018
Surprisingly helpful. A lot of these sorts of "newsletter" books contain paragraphs of self-aggrandizement and empty platitudes but this one is actually quite practical. It's relatively straightforward: here's why you should declutter, here are the benefits, here's a step-by-step checklist and here's how to keep up with it. There's also some solid advice you don't always see in other productivity guides, such as tips on picking a really effective password (something most of us can easily overlook) to using IFTTT to automate your life. I appreciate that.

It is sometimes jarring how the language kinda flows from referring to the two authors in the third person (this is addressed this in a disclaimer in the beginning of the book) because of the nature of the book being co-written between two authors, but that doesn't make the information of this book less helpful.

I'm an animator and I work with a lot of video so I'll definitely reference this later on.
Profile Image for Brentin.
86 reviews3 followers
August 15, 2020
The book does not offer a whole lot of new information for the tech savvy. More important is the actual getting into the habit of doing the declutterring. The first couple chapters can pretty much be skipped, as it's a bunch of self praise and how your life will be transformed blahblahblah. The desired information is easily broken down into small pieces and can be cherry picked to suit your individual needs.

One note for the Audible version: the narrator talks really, really fast. It also gets annoying when he's describing the file names and is saying it like "oh seven fifteen twenty-fifteen vacation one" then repeats the file name with"vacation two".
Profile Image for Scott Allan.
Author 34 books55 followers
November 16, 2015
"Once upon a time, families sat down at a table for dinner and talked about their day as they ate..."

The world has completely changed in the past 15 years. As Steve Scott and Barry Davenport show us in their latest collaboration, the internet is no longer just a thing of convenience: it is a way of life, and for millions of people around the world, it is quickly creating the world's next epidemic of tablet, computer and internet addicts, a global society that is fixated on the virtual world.

Backed up by thorough research articles and extensive case studies that support the material for "The 10 Minute Digital Declutter", this book is a wake-up call for the millions [billions] of people on the planet that cannot go without their devices, email, or social media connections for more than one day.

If you're guilty, put your hand up.

This book isn't just a book you read and forget about the next day. It addresses a critical condition that we, as a global society, are losing [have lost] complete control over. As Steve/Barrie state, "A digital world addiction can be as destructive as other types of addictions. Compulsive use of technology interferes with your daily life, work and relationships in a number of ways."

Why WE need to read this book...

The 10 Minute Digital Declutter doesn't hold anything back. The authors tell it how it is. Some countries [China and the USA] are facing a national crisis with devices and time spent online. One in four accidents are caused by texting while driving; people have stopped communicating altogether and now live a "digital lifestyle", often without any physical contact; attention spans last for fifteen seconds and then move to something else "more important"; and on it goes.

This book is written to provide powerful solutions to controlling and managing your Internet fix. And if it is not you, it could be for your children. But the bottom line is: without a system of habits to discipline your "cravings" for checking email, engaging online, or something to keep you distracted, the situation will continue to worsen. And most people will barely recognize it until its too late.

This book has a powerful introduction that is extremely well organized. Instead of just throwing some actionable tasks at us right away, the authors set up the purpose and these of the book by discussing:

— The dangers of digital technology and devices;
— Why you feel overwhelmed by technology;
— Why we get hooked on technology;
— How digital dependence damages your life
— The benefit of digital devices
— The 14 advantages of a digitally cluttered life;

In Part III when we can learn the strategies for living a digitally decluttered life that saves time, money, and makes life less chaotic. In one chapter Steve and Barrie ask, “Do you have a decluttering problem?” and there are 21 questions to answer to determine if you are a digital packrat. From here the authors layout simple daily habits [based on Tiny Habits and the concept of ego depletion] that only take 10 minutes.

Part IV gets into the action steps of starting the declutter project. A few of the actionable steps suggested are:
— Turn off chat;
— Reduce your smart phone apps;
— Make a real people first rule [I love that one!];

Part V has great strategies for decluttering your inbox that gets stuffed full of thousands of emails that are totally buried and taking up space; But Part VI: Declutter Your Computer is perhaps my favorite. Before I read this my desktop looked like a minefield that caused stress whenever I looked at it. In this chapter we are introduced to a “Simple Filing System” by creating a system of files for the major parts of your life. The process and system is clearly laid out so that anyone can create and manage it. This is a definite gem in the book! Part 6 covers a fantastic process for minimizing your computer. If you’re computer is filled up with scattered and miscellaneous files, you’ll find the solution here.

Part 7: Decluttering Your Smartphone and Tablet has a similar approach to part 6 with 9 actionable steps to get your smartphone device in order. Here the authors introduce readers to the essential apps to download for increasing simplicity and keeping your Smartphone clean. I like the section on backing up your digital life too; why leave things to chance? You can backup your most important notes and ideas, as well as covering the dangers of cloud-based backup [read carefully].

The finals action of this book wraps everything up by providing actionable content for maintaining the digital declutter plan. By utilizing various apps and following up with a declutter system every 2-3 months, you can stay ahead of the declutter game and avoid getting bogged down in “digital wasteland” again.

The 10-Minute Digital Declutter is a definite roadmap to getting control of and managing your digital lifestyle. Nowadays, with most people spending on average 30% of their time using a device or computer, the need for keeping things organized should be a priority. That is where this book comes in and for the low price you can purchase it for, the value you’ll get back is exponential. With the program in this book by Steve and Barrie you can declutter your digital life, reduce stress, and save time and money while boosting productivity and building more freedom into your daily work and personal life. What are you waiting for?

Start decluttering your digital life.
Profile Image for Devendra.
6 reviews
May 17, 2018
after read this book you will change the way to use your digital device and organised all files and app etc
now days we feels lots info bombarded on us, our all device mess with screenshot, images, music, downloads to collect all information in this world.
even we know this informations are multiplying day by day.
we using this digital media easily but hard to manage that files, bookmarks etc.,
so after reading this book complete you get over this social media , clutter of pc, mobile CLUTTER, and other technology related problems.
SIMPLICITY, ORGNIZE, MINIMALIST....
Profile Image for Baru.
44 reviews1 follower
August 8, 2018
I have a problem with this genre (so not objective review at all), whenever I have a chance to read selfhelp book I see the same mistake. 3 chapters just to explain you why to do digital decluttter. I guess when you bought this book, you know you might have a problem already. I like some of the advices and system of decluterring but generally nothing new. Btw writing book in style "Steve is doing his decluterring routine..."(3rd person) I found pretty awkward and difficult to identify with. I would recommend this book for "digital" beginners, for the rest there is nothing really in it.
Profile Image for Paul Grech.
Author 7 books11 followers
July 28, 2018
Some useful tips on how to clear your devices but nothing that was truly insightful. Also, initial chapters (at least first fifth of book) were dedicated to why you should declutter which seemed a bit too much; if you're reading this book then it should be a taken that you know that you need to declutter, no?
Profile Image for Ankita T.
24 reviews6 followers
May 1, 2019
It's a good book for the general public but being a graphic designer, many things need to be micro managed to make your digital life clutter free. We end up using many apps and softwares than common people so would not recommend it to anyone who is a graphic designer or a web developer... We need to create our own way.
Profile Image for Dušan.
8 reviews
May 11, 2019
Useful

I thought that this book will make me good at declutering my digital world, but instead it boosted my morale. I use large portion of advices in this book daily already, and share advices daily to my friends. This book validated may effort in declutering, and now I will decluter something else: frends that need help, by simply recommendig this book ;)
Profile Image for Dakster.
9 reviews1 follower
November 25, 2017
Quick and easy read on the topic. I was able to take some of the teachings and apply them to immediate use.
Profile Image for Seth Robertson.
4 reviews
June 26, 2018
Business as usual

Nothing in here you can’t find on a tech blogs for free. Probably useful information I just was able to find it elsewhere.
Profile Image for Sirisha Reddy.
12 reviews
October 23, 2018
It wasn't an eye opener but it wasn't something that was a total waste of time BS. So meh!
Profile Image for Kelli.
52 reviews4 followers
February 21, 2020
I skimmed a lot of the book. There were a lot of basic concepts that seemed outdated and/or common sense.
Profile Image for Jon.
13 reviews
March 17, 2021
A Thorough Plan

Most of this I was aware of but if you feel overwhelmed and feel like you need help then I highly recommend this book!
Profile Image for Lori.
92 reviews5 followers
May 24, 2023
This book gave me lots of great ideas. Thanks!
Profile Image for Stefanie Jaramillo.
15 reviews4 followers
October 26, 2019
Enlightening.

I most definitely learned a lot about how cluttered my life is digitally. I started my journey to digital declutter and found photo organization to be the most overwhelming aspect. However, this book gives sound advice to take it one step at a time.
235 reviews
March 5, 2017
2.5-3 stars. Nothin new or revolutionary, but a good reminder.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews

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