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Romans 12:2
Encouragement to fulfill God's purpose through Practical Life Application and Navigation

Email Overload!

I took a break from checking my email during the Christmas holiday and WHAM – when I opened up my inbox there were over 200 new additions in just over two days. Huh? I really don’t even know THAT many people, and honestly, with texting and Facebook, I don’t utilize my email account nearly as much as I used to for personal communication. So who the heck was emailing me?

The majority of the culprits were from stores and sites that I had subscribed to. Sites I had knowingly and willingly signed up for! What was I thinking?

Well, I’ll tell ya what I was thinking. Sometimes a special discount or coupon was being offered to anyone signing up to be on a site’s email distribution list. Other times, I was on the lookout for a special deal from a store I frequent. Occasionally, I was just interested and curious to see what a business had to offer. Whatever the case had been, clearly I had subscribed to a lot of sites, and in the hype of the holiday season, these sites were going full bore – sending out emails sometimes twice and three times a day, every day.

In all fairness, I’ve scored some amazing deals and phenomenal coupons from being subscribed to these lists, so I’m not complaining, but there’s a time and a place for everything. With Christmas over for another 362 days and my piggy bank depleted, I don’t need to be taunted with specials or tempted with coupons.

Hitting the delete button isn’t generally much of a big deal but this was getting ridiculous. It was time to declutter my inbox and move on.

So this morning I spent about 45 minutes clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ button on each and every site I no longer wanted to hear from. I kept a select few on board for my most frequented sites and stores, but aside from those, the rest are gone.

Does it mean as I gear up for Christmas next year, I can’t subscribe again? Of course not. But for now, there’ll be a LOT less clutter in my inbox and the lure of what I don’t need will be removed. I can’t wait until all those unwanted subscriptions drop off (this can take from 1-10 days to happen)and I open my inbox to just six or eight new pieces of mail each day. Ahhhh…..simplicity.

What’s clogging your inbox? Perhaps it’s similar to what I’ve experienced, or maybe you’ve signed up for one RSS Feed too many? Are there blogs you’ve subscribed to which don’t really interest you or aren’t what you expected? (hopefully you don’t feel that way about ours!) Maybe you were looking into a particular school or program of study but have decided against it – yet continue to receive solicitations. Sometimes we just get so accustomed to overlooking things that we don’t take action. Why not just deal with them swifty and be done?

As 2012 winds to a close, take a moment and not only clean out your inbox, but be proactive and prevent unwanted mail from showing up to begin with. It might be just one small step toward a decluttered new year but EVERY STEP in the right direction is an important part of an overall ‘less is more’ plan! Let me know how it goes!!!

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