If you've been holding out for a reason to Marie Kondo your life, you're in luck — it's almost time for a good old spring clean. And with an extra hour of daylight (not to mention your seasonal allergies back in full swing), there's no better time to break out the cleaning products and go to town on your flat.
But this time around, there's more to clean than just your living space. If the KonMari method has taught us anything, it's that you can give the Marie Kondo treatment to just about every aspect of your life — from your inbox to your makeup to your friendships and finances to, of course, your closet. So why shouldn't you clean up your Instagram, too? If you, like me, spend a lot of time on IG, you might benefit from a bit of social media organisation and decluttering. From your aunt's hashtags clogging your feed to those pesky ads getting in the way of your IG aesthetic, here's how to clean up your Instagram.
Limit What Posts & Stories You See
There's nothing like a good IG following purge every once in a while. Sometimes the accounts you followed a few years ago just don't do it for you anymore, and that's okay — be rid of them and don't look back! (Unless, of course, they have one of those third-party apps that tell them you unfollowed, in which case you might have some explaining to do.) But for the people whom you probably should still follow (you know, for the optics), Instagram introduced a very handy mute feature that lets you hide posts and/or stories on the accounts you need a break from.
Maybe your friend's food pics aren't very appetising, or maybe your mom's hashtags are just a lot right now. The good news is, they won't know you've muted them (unless they're keeping tabs on who doesn't watch or like their content), and you'll have more control over the content you see when you scroll through your feed or swipe through Stories.
Similarly, Close Friends is a great tool you can use to make your Instagram life feel a bit smaller. You can find it in the right-hand panel on your profile and select the group of people you want to share your content with when you just don't feel like sharing with your entire following. (And if your Close Friends circle feels a little too big, feel free to Marie Kondo that, too.)
Don't Be Afraid To Do Some Ad Control
Usually, when I scroll through my Instagram feed, the ads I come across feel really on brand for me and the types of accounts I follow. Occasionally, I'll even be tempted to click through and see what that necklace being advertised to me is all about. But sometimes an ad can be an inorganic eyesore that gets in the way of your IG flow. In cases like these, you can simply hide the ad from your feed. Tap the three dots on the top right corner of a post or on the bottom of a sponsored story, and you'll be prompted to hide or report the ad.
Alternatively, if it creeps you out to get ads related to your interests (i.e., how did they know I'm looking for new boots?!), click on About Instagram Ads in the same drop-down menu, and you'll get instructions on how to opt out of seeing ads based on your activity on third-party sites and apps. For iOS, all you have to do is go to Settings > Privacy > Advertising > Turn Limit Ad Tracking On. Doing this won't necessarily cut down on the ads being served to you, but it will make them less relevant to you since they won't be tied to your activity on other sites and apps.
Track Your Activity
With the tech world's increased emphasis on digital well-being, it has become easier than ever to track productivity and time spent on apps like Instagram. If you click on Your Activity on the right-hand panel of your profile, you can see everything by the numbers — and it might shock you just how much time you spend scrolling without realising it. (It definitely shocked me.) And if you want to cut back, Instagram has two helpful tools. The first is Daily Reminders, which you can set to notify you once you've hit your self-selected time limit on the app for the day. Instagram will prompt you when you're getting close to your limit, and will then prevent you from using the app once you've hit that limit. You can, of course, change or cancel your limit at any time.
You can also select exactly what you want to receive push notifications for — be it a comment on a photo of you to a DM from someone you don't even follow. Or opt out of push notifications altogether, which will certainly curb your app activity time, since you won't be tempted to enter the app every time you get an alert.
Organize Your Saved Collections
I am constantly saving Instagrams posts while I scroll — everything from videos of dogs being brushed to pantsuits I want to wear one day. But until recently, they all got dumped into one giant Saved folder, like the digital version of a kitchen-clutter drawer. But I thought, why not compartmentalise my saved posts like Marie Kondo organises drawers with those adorable little boxes she stacks everything in? So I made individual folders within my Saved collection.
When you click Saved on the right-hand panel of your profile, there's a plus sign in the top right corner, which you can use to make individual subfolders. I made a folder for each of my main interests: food, fashion, weird stuff, and funny stuff (I mean, is there anything else?), and now when I scroll through my feed, I can save posts to individual subfolders rather than dumping them mindlessly into one big pile. When you tap the flag in the lower right-hand corner of a post, you have the option to "Save to Collection." When you click on this, you'll be prompted to choose which folder you want the post filed into. You can also save items you want to buy to a special Shopping Collection, which can function like a shopping cart that you can come back to after a week of deliberating over whether you need the jacket or just want it.
Use Your Story Controls
Whether you're a #microinfluencer or just have a high engagement rate among your following of 300 people (maybe your coworker DMs you every time you post...and you don't even follow her back), all those DMs and comments can get overwhelming, fast. To block out the noise, go to the right-hand panel on your profile and click on Settings. From here, click on both Story Controls and Comment Controls, where you can choose who can message you and comment on your posts — thus giving you a better handle on the clutter.
Similarly, if there's anyone you don't want to watch your Stories to begin with, you can click Hide Story From in the Story Controls menu and go to town.
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