I do. not. care. about inbox zero. :) Too often, it becomes less about efficiently managing your inbox and more about rushing to have no emails for any reason. I prefer to make sure I'm adequately handling messages instead of emptying my box. But still, my number one tip for a clean inbox?
Get rid of all of your subscriptions.
Yes. I mean all of them. Start over. You know for a fact you have too many. Just take an hour and do it. It's a huge step, but what you'll gain is learning which subscriptions you actually love and want to hold on to. If it's worth the work to go find it again, it's worth the space it takes up in your inbox.
For fun, here are a few things I love that I currently subscribe to:
- The Minimalists - Life and minimalism
- Praxis Newsletter - Professional advice
- My local knit shop - One of my favorite places to go for fun
This post is short, but seriously, it's that simple. Unsubscribe from everything. Throw it all in the garbage. Once you've figured out what you're re-subscribing to, share them with us in the comments or send me a tweet. :)
Did you know I have a newsletter? 📬
If you want to get notified when I publish new blog posts or make major project announcements, head over to https://ashleemboyer.com/newsletter.
Image by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash.
Top comments (20)
Nice,
I figured that even we
Unsubscribe, we still keep getting those very often with different domains.So, I started to add filters and send them directly to
Trash,now it got tidy like never before.And Trashed mails get deleted after 30 days 👨🏻💻^
Hmm, I'm not sure I've had the same issue! I've noticed that sometimes you have to make sure you "Unsubscribe from all" within some profile settings. That'll keep you from getting various categories of emails.
Email rules usually freak me out, I'm so afraid I'm going to send the wrong thing to the garbage!
Good point! I like that mentality about a lot of things. If I haven't worn or used a thing in a while, I try to get rid of it.
I'm pretty sure my idea of unsubscribing from everything came from How The Minimalists Are Using Social Media in 2018, where they unfollowed almost everyone and every thing on social media to more intentionally curate their feed.
It's drives me crazy that when you enter on any website they start to open a lot of modals and popups trying to send you an ebook... And not to mention these e-commerce where you buy something and they already start sending you offers every 30 minutes 😑😑
Ha, there’s an excellent gif/video that shows this. If I find it, I’m definitely posting it. 😂
Excellent advice. I click on trash 50 times a day at least without even glancing at the message. Another problem in my inbox is FYI emails from colleagues with information I really don't need. That's a tougher one to crack.
Yes... those are more difficult. I’d suggest automatically giving them labels/colors that way you can visually filter all your messages and prioritize them.
I just discovered stoopinbox.com, which has helped my inbox a lot!
Those scroll animations though! Can you pull newsletters from anywhere or only from people who've signed up? It's hard to tell without downloading and trying it.
You just subscribe with a special email they give you! And they have a listing of good newsletters!
I'll check it out. Thanks for the rec! :)
Agreed. I restarted Twitter and I love my feed now. So many inspiring people out there in software and design. ☺️
I'm planning this weekend a thorough 'digital' clean-up, closing a few social media accounts that I don't use anymore, and getting rid of the subscriptions is such a great idea!!!
Awesome! You got this. 😎
I don't think I've ever subscribed to anything.
What do you do as an alternative when you want to stay up to date on certain content? Some of the sites I subscribe to have really uplifting emails, so they feel like little gifts every time I see them in my box. ☺️
Instead of this, I only subscribe if RSS feed is available; Thunderbird holds separate "inboxes" for each RSS feed.
I didn’t know that! Thunderbird never stuck with me but I might take another look at it in the next few months.
Need to do an inbox purge as well! Is there an app that makes it easier?