With these weekly emails, I try to send you a little tip or idea you can use to bring a little more Mental Sunshine into your life… something to brighten your mood a bit.
Today’s tip though – it might fall more under the heading of “removing mental clouds”
How is your email inbox looking?
Every time I ask people this question, they end up telling me an unreasonably big number of emails they have unread.
Someone once told me they had over 8000 unread emails!
The problem with that is – how do you know when an important email comes in?
Email overwhelm is a real thing!
Apparently professionals spend 28% of their working week managing emails!
And once an email has interrupted your train of thought, apparently we spend 90 minutes every day recovering from that interruption!
These days we’re all signed up to so many different email lists…
And if you’ve had your email address for a while, there’s a good chance there are companies sending you emails that stopped being relevant a few years ago!
I know people whose kids are teenagers – but they’re still getting regular emails from nappy and baby formula companies!
Sound familiar?
Even if you go in and delete 50 junk emails a day, that’s still a lot of work.
Today, I want to try something different – let’s resolve to unsubscribe from the emails we usually delete or leave unread!
Here’s an even more outlandish idea…
If you have over 50 unread emails in your inbox, Just archive them all.
There was no chance you were ever going to open and read them.
If the email was important, the sender will chase it.
And you’re not deleting them – you’re just putting them out of your sight.
Go on, do it – I dare you.
Start with a clean slate.
The next thing is to begin unsubscribing.
Gmail has brought out a handy tool that helps with this.
In the menu, scroll down to Manage Subscriptions (you might need to hit “more” first)
Now you have a list of all the lists you’re subscribed to, sorted by how often they email you.
How many can you unsubscribe from in one go?
If you don’t use Gmail, here’s another way of doing it:
Use the search bar in your emails to search “unsubscribe”
Because all those mass emails always have a link to “unsubscribe” at the bottom!
Now you can pick which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of.
This feels like a massive task – and it is.
Which is why I suggest just archiving everything, and starting afresh.
Then just spend a little time each day unsubscribing from the lists you don’t want to be on.
Obviously I’d love for you to stay on this email list!
I’d like to think my emails bring you useful information – but really, if it’s just another thing in your inbox stressing you out, unsubscribe. I promise I won’t take it personally!
Promise yourself you will only keep the emails that are useful or informative or helpful in some way.
And then – next time you open your email – you’ll be greeted by a blank space!
Perhaps one or two new emails… but much less stress!
And if that doesn’t bring you Mental Sunshine, I don’t know what will!