Declutter Your Digital Life: Practical Tips for Digital Organization

Ralph:
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So here's the question for today.

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Do you ever get overwhelmed by clutter?

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Even in your digital, online world.

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Are you desperate for some digital organization, amidst information overload.

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If you're like me friends, you know, it feels like overload most days.

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Well, my friend you've come to the right place because that's exactly what we're going to talk about on today's show.

Intro:
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Welcome to the Ask Ralph Podcast, where listening to an experienced financial professional with over 30 years of experience can help you make sense of confusing questions, current headlines, and industry trends about taxes, small business, financial decision making, investment strategies, and even the art of proper budgeting.

Intro:
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Ask Ralph makes the complex simple by sharing his real world knowledge from a Christian perspective with all things financial.

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Now here's your host, Ralph Estep, Jr.

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Welcome to our technology Tuesday show.

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I'm so glad you chose to join us.

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I just want to thank you for listening and more importantly, supporting the program I'm coming to this morning from the Estep farm in a beautiful Saggio accounting studio.

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So let me put on my podcaster hat put down those overalls.

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Yes.

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I wear overalls when I'm working on the farm and push that adding machine.

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Yes.

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Because all accountants use adding machines.

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And let's get to some financial wisdom from a Christian perspective.

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Before I get started, don't forget to subscribe to the show and join our email list.

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You do that at askralphpodcast.com . So you don't miss tomorrow show tomorrow.

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We're going to have a great discussion.

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We're going to talk about money saving tips.

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When you go to the grocery store.

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This is a tough time.

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We're all dealing with, with inflation so we can all benefit some great money saving ideas.

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I posted this question to our Facebook group and I got some fantastic answers.

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Which we're going to share tomorrow.

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We also just launched, like I talked about an insider's group on Facebook.

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We've got a lot of conversation going on out there and encourage each of our listeners to join the group.

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It's a great place to continue conversations from the show.

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Share your ideas for the show.

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Maybe you've got a question you want me to talk about on the show, discuss your triumphs and talk about your challenges.

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There'll be a link.

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To the Facebook group in the show notes.

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I don't know about you, but I often feel buried under an avalanche of digital clutter.

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Thousands of unread emails unused smartphone apps and enough browser tabs to make my head spin research shows.

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The average person spends over six hours a day.

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Consuming digital media.

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Wow.

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I didn't realize it was that high.

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But those are facts.

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Folks.

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What all that screen time is no wonder.

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Many of us suffer from information overload and even tech burnout.

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The good news is this though.

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By following a few simple decluttering steps, which we're going to handle today.

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You can reclaim your control over your digital space.

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This will create room for you to focus on what really matters rather than getting distracted by superficial content.

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My aim today is pretty simple.

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I'm going to offer you some practical tips to declutter your devices, your accounts, and your online habits.

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I'm even going to share some personal experiences, both my victories and my failures along the way.

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Well, let's get started with today's Bible verse.

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It comes to us from the book of Matthew chapter six, verse 21.

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And it says this for where your treasure is there.

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Your heart will be also.

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As Christians, we know our focus should be on heavenly treasures rather than earthly possessions.

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It's kind of a no brainer.

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The same concept applies to our digital spaces.

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What are we really treasuring when we compulsively scroll through social media or mindlessly, download more content.

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It's time for some self-examination and some simplification today, folks.

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Let's kick things off with a good old fashioned assessment.

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I believe that the best way to handle a situation is to make an honest assessment.

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So grab a notebook and pen and take five to 10 minutes scanning each device and account you regularly use.

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You want to jot down anything causing frustration, such as glitchy apps.

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You know, if you've got an app that's annoying, you write it down.

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Unused subscriptions, bloated photo albums and spammy email lists.

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Resist the urge to go down any digital rabbit holes here.

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This is just a high level scan and assessment.

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Once your assessments, complete prayerfully, review your notes, ask God what areas of digital clutter are distracting me or preventing me from living purposely listen for his wisdom.

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Then make a decluttering game plan.

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That's right.

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We're going to talk about making a de-cluttering game plan based on what he reveals.

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For me, God highlighted how much time I was wasting mindlessly scrolling, social media and newsfeeds.

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I realized I was filled with anxiety over world events.

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I truly couldn't control.

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Rather than focus on making a kingdom impact right here, where I was planted.

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So I knew deep down decreasing social media usage needed to be part of my declutter plan.

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Ask God to show you any misplaced priorities or toxic thought patterns.

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Enabled by this digital clutter it's coming at us from all directions, but now it's time to get to work.

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So I suggest tackling one device or account per day over the course of a week.

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For example, start with your smartphone on day one.

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Move to cloud storage day to hit up your email box and day three and so forth this way you take it one step at a time.

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So here are some powerful tips to guide the process.

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I'm going to give you five of them.

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Number one.

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Delete any unused apps and accounts.

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Most of us have signed up for many more services than we actually use.

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Eliminate what's unnecessary to simplify your login management and increase security.

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If you're not using an app or you're not using an account.

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Delete it it's going to help you declutter your life and it's going to improve your security.

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Number two.

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Unsubscribe from email list, not serving you.

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Even if you glance at a store's promotions once a year, is it worth being in your inbox, clutter?

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Use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email, or use a service like unroll.me that's unroll.me to efficiently remove yourself.

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Many of the email clients have a building link for this.

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But if you're not using the email, why bother getting it in the first place?

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Number three.

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Organize your files and photos dig into those chaotic folders, filled with screenshots and documents.

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I did this yesterday on my Mac.

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I couldn't believe how much garbage I had out there.

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Create a folder structure.

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That makes sense by topic by date or by tags.

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While you're organizing photos, delete blurry.

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Pictures or shot.

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You never refer back to in preparing for the show.

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I looked at my iPhone and I realized I have close to 20,000 photos on my iPhone.

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Clearly I need to do some decluttering, work myself.

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Number four, modify social media use for me that meant removing Facebook and Twitter apps from my phone.

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Well, at least that's what I'm going to tell you.

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I did, but I really have been limiting a log ins to once a day and hiding, not essential feeds on LinkedIn.

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You could consider an app like freedom, that block sites during work as folk times, these are a distraction.

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these are a huge distraction.

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You need to eliminate them or at least limit how much time you're using have a

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number five.

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Automate your log-ins when possible enable auto sign-in of safe sites rather than manually entering passwords each visit.

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Use a password manager, like last pass, to simplify password creation and storage.

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I did a.

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Show about a week ago on that.

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You may want to go back and check that out because I really feel like this is a great way to declutter and give yourself more time.

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If that list seems overwhelming, just tackle one step per day.

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You don't have to do this all at once.

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The truth is folks tiny progress is still progress.

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You're moving forward.

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Saving a few minutes daily through these efforts quickly adds up to hours reclaimed over a month.

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And don't just stop after a single week set reminders on your calendar, revisit device and account organization monthly, because guess what folks you're probably going to go back to those old habits.

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Again, just like your physical space.

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Your digital zone requires maintenance to prevent new clutter.

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Stay on top of it.

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And soon minimalist habits will form.

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You're going to find it out, you don't need as much clutter in your life.

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Now I'll share a funny story from a listener.

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He commented recently visited his doctor, which reminded him that no one is immune to digital disorder.

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After the normal doctor talk, his doctor confided his desktop PC was riddled with so many disorganized patient files and medical study PDFs.

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That it crashed frequently as a physician, staying organized is critical for patient care.

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So technology chaos was impeding his work.

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He said that since he knows computers, the doctor asked him to take a look at it some time.

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He was surprised.

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A brilliant doctor lacked a basic digital skills like using the computer file Explorer.

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So the next week, he sat with him and showed him how to create a folder system for different patient types and topics.

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They went through and deleted unnecessary downloads that were choking memory and backups of files already saved in the cloud.

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In just an hour.

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They transformed that mess into a streamlined system that significantly improved functionality, but most importantly, it reduced the doctor's daily frustration.

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So he can devote mental energy to medicine rather than those computer crashes.

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His patient notes to improve.

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Thanks to tidy digital hygiene.

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After de-cluttering his device.

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He took the doctor through setting up automated cloud backups.

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And password management tools as well.

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Now the doctor's file stay organized automatically and log-ins are hassle-free.

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Talk about a digital miracle, almost like a digital makeover.

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And I just want to say thank you for sharing that story.

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It's exactly what I'm talking about today.

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So friends.

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Even if a busy doctor required a digital detox.

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Where might simplification boost your days?

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Consider it an act of stewardship before God to use technology wisely and avoid that information overload.

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We are getting information from 12 different directions all the time, and we've got to be good stewards of our resources and that's our personal space and our personal time.

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And figure out how to declutter our lives.

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So I'm going to leave you with this.

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Be sure to visit our podcast page at askralphpodcast.com for more tech insights.

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Plus, I've got some great money and lifestyle advice from a biblical perspective.

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If you didn't know this, we've got over 400 episodes with wisdom to help you honor God in your personal and your professional pursuits.

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Also, please do me a favor.

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You can do that by rating and sharing this episode with anyone who might benefit from these digital organizing tips.

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The truth is this word of mouth is the best way for content creators like me to reach more people with our message.

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So I truly appreciate your help.

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Tell one or two people about it and let's watch it grow.

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So as I always say, let's stay savvy out there as we steward our finances and devices for the Lord.

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Here's to less digital clutter.

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And more focus on the things above.

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God bless you.

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Richly my friends have a great day.

Outro:
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00:11:02

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