Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Hodgepodge


I’ve decided to reduce my clutter. I’m not throwing out my clothes or my mountain bike or even my old dishes. In fact I’m not talking about my physical possessions at all. It’s the virtual clutter that’s been bothering me as of late. I receive hundreds of emails a day and there’s no way I can or want to read and process all of them. So recently I went through my emails and started hitting that magical unsubscribe button. It feels good and I’m sure it will be a time saver in the future!

I started with all my special deal sites. There was a time when I thought Groupon, and the plethora of other discount sites that followed, were perhaps the best ‘invention’ since the stand-up Jet Ski (that’s high praise for me). But lately it seems they all offer the same junk that I don’t want. After all how many eyelash extensions and fitness classes does a girl need? The time I save not going through these countless voluntary advertisements will be worth the extra ten bucks it costs me every now and again.

After the deal sites I started targeting other regular emails. Somehow I was on a kickball email distribution list. I remember attending one game and being bored out of my mind so I had no intentions of going back. So bam that one’s gone and I can feel more weight lifted off my shoulders!

Next up was my Meetup.com emails. I’m a member of about 20 meetup groups and I only attend about one meetup per month. I don’t need to see what every group is offering every day. I guess this would be neat if I was some kind of control freak but alas I am not. If I have time I will go to the site to see what’s going on. If I’m busy then I don’t need to know. Ahhh more relief!

The unsubscribe process was basically easy and quick. For most emails you click on ‘unsubscribe’ and maybe ‘yes’ to verify and your work is done. This seems logical and acceptable. But then there are some that made me log in and then change user preferences. These really annoyed me. Chances are that if I don’t want your emails I don’t remember my password or even my user name. For these it was a bit more work but still worth it. And where possible I added a sweet little note about their annoying process.

From the outside my life may look the same but I feel a sense of ease knowing I will receive just a few emails per day. Perhaps someday this will make me feel lonely and not popular… but I doubt it.

Cat “Stay Subscibed to my Blog” Cathy