What Is Digital Feng Shui, & How Can You Achieve It?

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Feng Shui, also known as Chinese geometry, is the traditional Chinese practice of using geometry to create balance and harmony in one’s surrounding environment. The process claims to promote happiness, wealth and good health by optimising the space around us.

While a lot of us tend to be good at organising our surroundings in the home and our workspaces, we often neglect one major part of our daily lives. In today’s world it is safe to say technology has an enormous influence on our wellbeing. So how can we utilise the principles of Feng Shui in our digital spaces to create a healthier environment on our devices?

Let’s start from the beginning. Feng Shui (pronounced fung-shway) translates literally to “wind-water”. The earliest known examples of the practice date back to 4000BC in ancient China. They used Feng Shui to dictate the design and layout of settlements. The custom didn’t end here. Feng Shui has over the years become a mainstream technique in Chinese culture when designing homes.

The placement and cleanliness in the environment around you has a significant impact on your mind. The idea of Feng Shui is that all objects harness energy. Therefore, arranging furniture and other elements in your living space can impact how you feel in your surroundings. For example positioning your bed away but still in view of the door or minimising electronics in the bedroom. Symmetry is another key concept. According to Feng Shui, having your bed in the middle of the wall is ideal.

Take a quick look through your smartphone or your laptop. Your home screen is most likely a collection of unorganised apps, some that you may not have used for months. A camera roll that  contains a mixture of screenshots of online shopping confirmations and pictures of sunsets that looked pretty in real life but let’s be real, the picture did it no justice and you realised after that you should have just enjoyed it in the moment. Let’s not forget the jarring ex-boyfriend’s contact that you still haven’t deleted.

Now that we have all established that our digital worlds are completely cluttered. What can we do about it?

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Organise your lock and home screens

A simple and calm wallpaper is a great place to start. This one step alone will bring tranquillity to your digital space. A neutral toned background with a small positive affirmation or a serene nature picture will work perfectly for this. To organise your home screen, delete any unnecessary apps or hide them from the main screen. Arrange them into smaller folders under labels that best suit them. For example anything to do with work can go into the work section. These steps will allow your phone display to become much neater.

Be conscious of your following

Every so often it’s beneficial to have a look through the accounts that you follow on social media. Do they serve you and allow you to stay in a positive mood? Are they friends or family or are they just adding to the chaos of your digital space? Make sure to keep your feed to accounts that inspire you and that you are interested in keeping up to date with. Otherwise, it’s time to remove them.

Those 7,000 unopened emails have to go!

Keeping on top of your inbox is important. Whether you notice it or not, having thousands of unopened messages is probably impacting how you feel. It is much easier to miss something important if your emails are not organised. Try to delete them or move the emails to your junk.

Change up your ringtone

There is no worse feeling than finally settling into bed with a book after a long day and then hearing the jarring noise of a notification coming from your phone. Switch to a vibrating notification and only keep notifications on for important apps such as your messages. This will also help you to stay off of social media as you wont be reminded of them as often.

Decluttering is key!

One of the most important aspects of Feng Shui is keeping your surrounding areas clean and decluttered at all times. The same applies for your devices. Try to get rid of unnecessary pictures, apps, downloads etc. at least once every month. This will also free up storage in your device.

Now that you have learned how to use Feng Shui in the digital world, it is time to incorporate it into your life! These tools will hopefully allow you to optimise your time on your devices and not let them negatively impact you.

Words by Ava Grace