Iām not one of those people with a beautifully organised pantry but I do have a little story to share about how I learnt to declutter my phone with simple step.
Now listen. I donāt think Iām alone when I say that everything in my life (and my life admin tasks) were jumbled together into one big pile of chaos.
You knowā¦
Use the massage voucher from last Mother's Day blurred intoā¦
Find a better deal for our family health insurance blurred intoā¦
Buy my kids tickets for the Motherās Day stall at school blurred intoā¦
Submit the next draft of my book to my publisher blurred intoā¦
Lodge the BAS for my husbandās building company blurred intoā¦
Get the kids to Nippers registration day this Sunday blurred intoā¦
RSVP to the social event for my Friday netball team.
You get the gist.Ā
Youāve probably been there / are still there yourself.
I just used to deal with things as they came along. Reactive. On the fly. On the defense.
There was no order. What. So. Ever.
Until I started thinking about these things as separate entities.
I figured out that there were 7 main partsā or buckets which most things in my life fit into.
Give or take a fewā¦hundred. š
1. Personal
2. Family
3. School
4. My work
5. My husbandās work
6. Kidsā sport
7. My sport (if you could call a bunch of middle-aged mums giggling and stumbling around a netball court sport)
I know this might seem obvious to some people but thinking about the jumbled chaos of my life as being an ordered, categorised system was a real lightbulb moment for me.
So if you were to take the examples that I started with here, this is how theyād be ordered into my ābucketsā.
Ā 1. Personal
Use the massage voucher from last Mother's Day
2. Family
Find a better deal for our family health insurance
3. School
Buy my kids tickets for the Motherās Day stall at school
4. My work
Submit the next draft of my book to my publisher
5. My husbandās work
Lodge the BAS for my husbandās building company
6. Kidsā sport
Get the kids to Nippers registration day this Sunday
7. My sport
RSVP to the social event for my Friday netball team
Ā
The framework or architecture of this system was one thing.
The other parts of it was:
1. How can I get others, like my husband, sharing this load and on the same page?
2. How can we make sure we donāt forget about events and see whatās coming up?
3. How can I easily get files like screenshots and PDFs and photos into this system too?
Enter Eggy. šŖ
The one simple step that helped me declutter my phone.
I know, I know. Another app. I was skeptical too.
Do I really need another app in my life? Isnāt that only going to add to the load for me?
Thatās what I was asking myself.
But what I realised is that having the Eggy app actually meant I could delete a few other apps.
Eggy is a shared calendar app. So goodbye Apple iCal.
Eggy is a digital filing cabinet. So goodbye Google Drive.
And Eggy is a lists app. So goodbye Microsoft To-Do.
But itās also meant I no longer have to go into that god-awful team sports app that the Nippers club used to get me to use. Goodbye Felicia!
Getting rid of apps or at least condensing four apps into one feels like a cleanse.
Like Iāve just cleaned out the spare room at home or the junk draw in the office.
The other very cool thing though is I can set up digital spaces in Eggy which reflect those parts or those buckets of my life.
In each space I can invite others in so that they can get all the same events and reminders in the calendar.
And they can add things in too (if I want to give them edit permission, that is.)
Not everything in life is perfect (trust me, I know!).
And not everything can be fixed by putting it into a category (no app can help my husbandās wet towel on the bedroom floor).
But at least with this new framework and system I have in place it at least lets me feel like there is some level of organisation in my life.
Which means that when I go to that social catch up for my netball team, Iāll be able to let one margarita blur into another margarita with a little less stress and a lot less mess in my head.
That in itself is worth the download.
-Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Alicia, author, wife, mum of two and feisty netballer š¤£
Alicia Millier is a childrenās book author who lives on the Gold Coast, Qld. Through her publishing business, AM Publications, Alicia creates easy-to-read educational childrenās books which beautifully incorporate the Australian way of life.