I can be an iPhone app hoarder.

I love trying out all the latests and greatests when they come out. But they tend to pile up, and then it takes me longer than it should to weed through all my apps to find one I’m looking for.

Of course, I have my favorites that I use all the time. But I also have many that I never actually use.

So it was definitely time to do some Spring Cleaning.

I got rid of all the apps I never use.

I had quite a few apps I’d downloaded with good intentions, but never really found a practical use for. And some that I once used fairly often, but just don’t have a need for anymore.

It was time to clean house and get rid of them.

No sense taking up storage space on my phone for an app I will maybe use someday. Should I ever actually need it at some point, I can always download it again.

I prioritized the apps I do use.

I went really simple with this.

• My first page has all the apps I use most frequently. Most of them I utilize every single day.
• My second page is for apps I use often, but not everyday. I also keep some new ones here that I want to try out as I have time.
• My third page is kind of like my junk drawer. It holds the apps that I rarely need, but when I do, I’m thankful I know where they are.

I grouped apps into folders… But not all of them.

I combined similar apps into folders, and labeled them accordingly. It makes it much easier to navigate through that way.

On my first page, I kept a few individual apps on their own, outside of a folder. I want to reduce steps to access the apps I use the most. 

For me, it is important to have my phone, texts, email, Twitter, calendar, and Evernote be just a simple click away.

How about you? Is it time for a little iPhone Spring Cleaning?

How do you organize things on your phone?

I don’t know about you, but I often feel like I’m a slave to my email inbox.

I find it challenging to keep up with the never-ending stream of correspondence, and I’ve been known to roll my eyes—just a little—at those people who tweet about achieving “Inbox Zero.” An empty inbox is my unicorn… I’m not exactly sure it exists, but I’ll spend my entire life searching for it.

I’m trying to get better at implementing strategies that work within the reality of my life.

The main thing I’m working to master right now with my email is to only touch it once.

I have the bad and unproductive habit of keeping my inbox open and basically checking email all day, reading them as they come in. My tendency is to read or skim the emails as they arrive. If they are urgent, I’ll respond accordingly. Others I’ll quickly reply to because I can (or want to), and then some I leave there for another time.

The problem is the time I waste having to re-read and re-consider the emails when I come back to actually work on them. Rather than taking care of the task at hand, I return to it later and then have to re-evaluate what to do with the task. It basically costs me double time.

Touch it once.

I need to set strategic time to actually check my email, and then decide what to do with each one immediately after I read it. Reply. Delete. File. Delegate. Add to my task management program to finish later.  

In the long run, this will save me valuable time from coming back to revisit the same emails over and over again.

What’s your personal favorite strategy
for managing your email?