The brutally simple trick to culling your Facebook friends in less than 30 seconds a day.

Spring cleaning season has arrived and if the thought of sorting your junk drawer has you running for the hills, there’s an easier way to feel like you’ve got your shit together. It all starts in your phone.

Yep, October is the perfect time to spring clean your social media. And no, you don’t need to go on a tech-detox or any of that nonsense.

Save yourself from seeing all the smug holiday posts of your ex and his new lover by doing a cull of your Facebook friends list. The best part? You don’t need to set aside an entire week of your life to tackle this gruelling task. We’ve got a way that only takes a few seconds every day.

You know how Facebook so thoughtfully reminds you when it is one of your friend’s birthdays? Well, it turns out it’s useful for more than just giving you a guilt trip for forgetting to send Auntie Trude’s birthday card.

When that little cake pops up on your newsfeed, you generally do one of two things. Either you’ll post a gushy Happy Birthday message on their wall, or you’ll keep on scrolling.

If you don’t have any interest in wishing that person a happy birthday – whether it’s because you aren’t close enough, you don’t particularly like them or to be frank you can’t even remember who they are – you probably don’t need to stay Facebook friends with them.

Don’t hesitate. The willingness to type out “HB” when prompted is a pretty low bar for friendship. And if you can’t even do that, you really don’t need to see their baby pictures and Europe spam for the next 20 years.

Listen: Would you rather play Snake than waste time on Facebook? The humble brick has returned!

Once you decide a ‘friend’ will miss out on your birthday wishes, it’s brutally quick to unfriend them. Head over to their profile for one last time and click on the button that says ‘friend’ with a tick next to it. It’s time to untick – now hit the big red unfriend button and breathe a sigh of relief.

Repeat daily until your friendship list has dwindled to just the people you know and love.

But hang on. Isn’t it mean to unfriend someone on their birthday?

Well that’s the beauty of it. If you’re not close enough to wish each other a ‘Happy Birthday’ you probably aren’t close enough for them to realise you’ve vanished from their feed.

And when someone you vaguely remember from your 2009 Contiki trip tries to add you? Just say, “NOT TODAY SATAN!”