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3 ways to get digitally organized in 2016

3 ways to get digitally organized in 2016
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There are a ton of articles out there offering suggestions for New Year's resolutions. Add this one to this list, but with an emphasis on your digital life.

Here are a few ways to get your cyber space organized.

Save on groceries
Your smartphone can help you save money at the store. Our friends at TheDailyClutch.com have offered some grocery store app suggestions designed to keep your wallet a little fatter. "Cellfire" is TDC's first suggestion — it's an app that allows you to search for and display coupons right on your phone. The coupons.com app works similarly and allows you to print your coupons. Also check out "Snip Snap," which allows users to take photos of their coupons to use at the store. Click the link to TheDailyClutch.com to read more. We also suggest you check out ideas from our partners at DealSpotr.com.

Organize your files
The one-hour photo kiosks are fading. Gone are the days of piles of photographs you may one day put in a scrapbook. You've digitized them, or you stopped getting real, tangible photos years ago. Is your cell phone's camera full and ready to be emptied? Join a photo managing website such as flickr or Shutterfly, where you can order prints and keep your photos organized.

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Many photo sites have a feature for allowing you to automatically upload, so you don't even have to press a button to get them there — they'll grab from your camera automatically if you give permission to do so. You can also store them in Google Drive or on Dropbox.

A warning, though: Check your settings on whatever app or website you choose to ensure the photos are private if you want them to be. Some sites will allow photos to be consumed by the public and even commercial uses if a user does not make them private. You have to be careful and check the copyrights that you're allowing in your settings. Take it from a member of the media — we're always hunting for stock images in the creative commons sections on photo websites, and if you have no limitations posted with yours, they're usually free game.

Delete, delete, delete
Why are you hanging on to the flier you created for your ugly sweater holiday party in 2013? How about photos of an ex you no longer wish to look at? It's time to free up some disk space, which will de-clutter your mind a little, too. Don't be a hoarder, think about whether you REALLY need something or not. As you are deleting the stuff you no longer need, organize what you keep by tagging photos for easier searching, or moving files into content folders by topic instead of file type.