I’ve spent the
last couple of weeks furiously unsubscribing from every newsletter that has
landed in my inbox. My peak email count was an average of 160 emails a day. My
inbox was out of control. Going on a business trip for 3-4 days meant that I came
back to more than 600 emails to slog through. I even calculated that even if it
takes only 1 second to press delete per email, that’s a full 10 minutes of
hitting delete to get rid of the rubbish. But the menial task of binary
prioritisation takes longer than 1 second per mail and I’m still left with a
substantial amount of emails that actually do need to be addressed.
As I went through
the task of unsubscribing, I recognised that I had signed up to some newsletters
but many seemed to have just arrived on their own. Then there are the emails
that are plain spam with no option to unsubscribe. You’d hope your junk mail
filters would take care of them, although mine doesn’t seem to be doing such a
good job. Of the 160 per day, there are maybe only 30 that actually need my
attention.
I was reluctant to
embark on this unsubscribe exercise since I’d done it once before and found
that somehow the number of spam emails I received had increased rather than
decreased. I also tried creating rules for emails I didn’t want, so that they’d
get filtered directly to my Junk folder and when my Mail programme decided to run
an update, all my rules were lost. Besides, I began to notice that many
newsletters from the same place use different email addresses to send from, perhaps
to avoid exactly this kind of filtering system.
Emails are an
issue for many of us. I don’t know anyone who complains about getting too few
emails. They take up focus, time, energy and headspace. As they arrive, their
ping, banner and announcement distract us from our work which makes us lose
more focus, energy, time and headspace.
Nonetheless, I
decided to allocate some time and go through the exercise of unsubscribing once
again and here is what I did:
1.
I chose 5 newsletters that I
actually do read every time they land up in my inbox – and I mean every time –
no compromises. Those get to stay.
2.
Once the process began an
interesting thing happened. I started to feel bad… for the people I know
personally who send emails and I’d now unsubscribe – would they know that I had
unsubscribed, would they be upset? Regardless, the war on emails continued.
3.
I noticed the newsletters
offering the fabulous course or retreat that I would so love to attend… one
day. What if I missed out on getting to know about that one retreat that I
would actually attend? A bit of FOMO crept in but I continued on.
4.
I noticed the newsletters that
I never did subscribe to and wondered how they ever landed up in my inbox.
5.
I noticed the emails that didn’t
have an unsubscribe option at all. I created an email rule to filter to junk
for these.
Unrelenting, I continued
on my mission and realised that there are other ways to stay in touch. For
example, you can like Facebook pages instead of subscribing to emails so that
if you want to know what is going on, you can actually go to the page and check
it out – on your own terms, at your own time
Now that I’m not
constantly bombarded with exciting events and promises, I actually feel more
focused, happier. I now know that I don’t need to hear about all the events and
outings I’m clearly not going to attend, even if they sound wonderful.
While there are
definitely newsletters that I’ve unsubscribed from that keep popping back into
my inbox, I’ve noticed my daily emails have now reduced to somewhere around 80
and that the number of spam emails has also reduced.
I feel clearer,
cleaner and don’t need to get bogged down with facing that dreaded inbox,
spending 10 minutes a day hitting the delete button.
I’ve also created
a second email address for those times I do want to read an article that
requires a sign-in. That inbox can get as full as it likes. I never look at it
and no-one else gets that email address.
In the meantime… I
invite you to unsubscribe, with these strategies:
1.
Choose 5 to keep
2.
For the rest, unsubscribe
3.
Create a second email address
for sign-ups
4.
Sign up on social media to
check-in intentionally
5.
Create an email rule to filter
spam to junk
6.
Unsubscribe some more
What strategies
have worked for you in managing your inbox?
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