This has happened more and more frequently. My phone has given me a message similar to the one you see at the left.

Sometimes it's exactly the message you see at left - when an app update comes along there's not enough available storage to download the update.

More often, though - especially lately - it's when I try to take a picture.

The phone won't even open up the phone shutter because it doesn't have enough memory to store a new photo.

And that's led me to clear some memory on my phone on a pretty regular basis for the first time.

Turns out, I have a lot of unnecessary stuff on my iPhone.

I have games that I tried out that I haven't touched in months. I have apps like the WTF app you see in the top left corner of the above picture that I paid for, used to catch up on old episodes, and are now worthless to me. I have apps that I downloaded because I thought I had to have them (like the Dunkin' Donuts app - I love Dunkin' Donuts! I need the app!)...but I never used them. So I've been deleting them all.

This is partly a byproduct, too, of trying some new music this year - that's added some songs and albums to the phone that take up space - and also the podcasts I listen to. If I go a couple of days without listening to some shows, especially the longer ones, I end up with hours of content on there before I end up listening to them and deleting them.

This is all kind of a big step for me. I'm not a huge fan of undoing something I did. And I like routine - and when I delete an app, it affects the layout of all the other apps. So if I'm used to finding an app in a certain spot on my phone (like, all the way on the right on the third row of the second page of my apps), and suddenly it's no longer in that spot...well, that's a hard adjustment for me.

But I'm making that adjustment. And part of the reason I need to clear some of the memory is so I can add new apps that I'll use more often.

Until I have to delete them.