HOW MUCH JUNK COLLECTS IN YOUR CELLPHONE?

About once a week, I check the email spam folder in my cell phone, and almost always find out that the stuff that lands there really is spam. Unfortunately, that’s not the only junk that gets collected in my phone. In fact, it’s only a small part of it.

It’s so easy to allow junk to accumulate in a cell phone because it still looks the same – no matter how many almost identical copies of a picture you have or how many emails that you intend to get to are stored there or how filled your address book is with the names of people whom you will never call again, and you wouldn’t remember who they are if they called you.

If all that stuff was on your desk, think of how messy (or messier) it would be.

Aside from the fact that the more junk you have in your phone, the more memory it takes up and the slower it functions, there is another problem with collecting all that junk: it makes you less efficient.

The more stuff that you have in your phone, the harder it is to find what you really want – whether it be a special picture of a child or grandchild or the phone number of the person you know can help you on a project but can’t remember the last name – and you have more than one Tony or John or Amy in your address book- with nothing to distinguish one from the other beside the phone numbers. And what’s the likelihood that the batch of emails that you received when you were on vacation 3 weeks ago contains something that is still really important and actionable?

As conscious as I am of this stuff, I never fail to amaze myself when I go on an aggressive deleting spree and realize how much junk I’ve accumulated since last time I did it. I’m envious of people who are efficient enough to stay in control of what they keep in their cellphones. I keep promising myself that I will become one of them some day and make that type of efficiency a priority. In the meantime, I’m trying to not let too much time accumulate between junk cleaning binges, and I encourage you to do the same.