I’ve grown tired recently of my phone constantly beeping because I’ve got new email. I’d say about 50% of the time its some newsletter or something I don’t care about.
The thing is…the solution is so simple. I’ve started unsubscribing from all the crap. Really, it’s easy. For a week or so, make a point to unsubscribe from every email list and newsletter email that you receive that you don’t care about. Usually its very easy, just click a link at the bottom. Sometimes you actually have to login and uncheck which emails you want. In any case it takes only a few seconds, and over the coming months it will save you hours of aggregate time. Not to mention its nice to wake up to an email box of a few emails that actually matter, rather than a boatload of crap.
I started doing this last week and the difference is remarkable. Try it.
You are not going all Tim Ferris on us are ya Dave?
Nah. This is a great tip. I am just so lazy, sometimes i think i would rather be pissed off than just take two seconds to unsubscribe.
I always feel like it is all or nothing, either i am gonna fix all the shit i dont want to read, or i am not going to lift a finger to look at it. and i hate the idea of doing it one per day or some crap. i think trying to do it for a week, is realistic. it is still extra work. but, in a week you can pretty much get the job done.
Actually I don’t know why, but I get the impression that Tim Ferriss is a colossal douche bag. I’m probably wrong though.
When i first got started online, I heard from people to sign up at all these lists, learn from these marketers, put them in your swipe files, etc, etc. I just kept it going because i’m too lazy too unsubscribe, but with the recent circle jerk product launch, I had enough and got off all these lists. The IM get rich quickers are an annoying bunch. They all went from the hard sell to the ‘i’m really a nice guy’ pitch. It’s pretty sad that people kiss up to these people in the hopes that they’ll get a jv deal or something.
I did that the day I got my Blackberry. Worked like a charm.
can i ask a question? why “the third attempt”? (RSS description)
I’ve attempted blogging approximately 3 times. Seems like I’ve finally stuck to it.
I just keep a separate “crap” gmail account for all these type of newsletters and anything else that I don’t want coming to my main email.
Then I can look in once a week or so and see what’s going on with all the product launches, but I don’t get constantly bothered in my day to day work.
If something is worthy of watching more closely I setup a gmail filter and forward those messages to my main account.