I’m feeling the need to cleanse. For weeks I’ve been letting things slide, thinking, I’ll get everything back on track after Christmas. This, my friends, is how my life goes completely off the rails. So, here we are, the day after Christmas, and it’s time. Marathon training starts today – more on that later. But this morning the thing I’m cleaning out is my inbox.
I’m an email subscription junkie. Or at least I have been until now. I had this idea that, as a writer, I needed lots of ideas coming from lots of places, so I signed up for all these daily emails that alerted me of new products, new trends, new sales, whatever. I get maybe two dozen of these a DAY, and, after years of amassing them, I just realized (I know, I’m slow) that I delete almost every one of them before I even read them. I also realized that there are a few I consistently read, because they actually deliver something useful on a regular basis. So I spent my post-Christmas morning unsubscribing. Here’s what I kept:
What I kept:
- Thrillist Nation: Lots of fun, inventive, interesting things in this email. I was also receiving various city-specific Thrillist emails, all of which I dropped. I’m never in one city long enough to care, at least for the time being.
- Runner’s World Quote of the Day: I’ve noticed recently that these are almost always taken from the most recent issue of the magazine, which I typically read cover-to-cover, so this one might go soon.
- A-Word-A-Day: If I could only keep ONE email, this would be it. (Nerdy and slow, that’s me. Deal with it.) I adore this email. I have a file of these emails that I’ve kept because l loved the words, and I have a Word document that contains all of my favorite collected quote- of-the-day, also included in these marvelous emails.
- The Daily Beast: I always scan, and sometimes read, this one because I feel like I should be more in touch with what’s going on in the world. It’s a guilt thing, but I hope to learn to actually care in the new year.
- LinkedIn Updates: Not life-changing useful, but it’s nice to know when my friends get new jobs or promotions.
- OpenSky: This is a service that allows you to sign up for “sales” promoted by various celebrities. I signed up when it first came out, and my celebrities were health experts, chefs, etc., but in the past I always deleted them. HOWEVER, when I went on the site to unsubscribe, I found a whole new list of chef choices, and I ended up just changing my subscriptions. So good job, OpenSky. For now.
That’s it. Everything else – the Groupons and Gilt Groups and all that nonsense are gone. I’m done. I don’t have any money to spend on them anyway, and why waste my time deleting them? I have a marathon to train for and a novel to write. Speaking of which, what kinds of things will you guys be up to in 2012? I’d love to hear.
Hello Goodbye 