The Great Unsubscribe of 2010

Zchamu, I'm the same as you, I have different email accounts. But there are few things that I've recently done:

1. On my Outlook and Hotmail account you can set up 'Rules', you can input an email address for all the newsletters and they will automatically move it to a folder/catagory. It is a gradual process, so everytime you receive an email from a newsletter, just set up a quick rule and next time it will go into a folder and when you have time you can look at the emails. It means you have a clean inbox and any important emails will be in your Inbox.

2. Another way: Do not to subscribe to their newsletter but subscribe to their RSS feed and set up a iGoogle Reader account where all the information will be fed in like a feed. You can set up different folders for this, so if you want to follow all companies which supply sustainable clothing then you can set a feed just to go to that folder.

Both things will save you time. We have so much information that we can't always absorb it all, but if we can put it in an organised format it saves you time.

Lastly always unsubscribe to emails which give no value to your life!

Michelle

I am SO jumping on the Great Unsubscribe of 2010! I've been debating the use of multiple email accounts for the purposes stated by other bloggers. It would really cut down on my time spent reading useless crap, even it I just click delete right away, it's wasted time.

I've found in some cases it doesn't matter how often you click 'unsubscribe' you stay on the list. Drives me crazy.

Kimberly writes at Outside My Head ( http://outsidemyhead.com/ ) and That's My Answer ( http://thatsmyanswer.com/ ).

I've been working on this, too. I have an folder for newsletters and when they arrive I move them there. Then when I have the time or when our server is down (rural - happens fairly often) I have something to read.

I've fairly recently started a gmail account and am still trying to figure it all out. I am the board president for a non-profit and now receive all associated emails in this account because I can access it from my iPhone when away from home.

You know that your online world has gotten out of hand when handling everything feels like a job!

That's what I do, too! :)

blogging with love at Unlikely Origins: How a Computer Geek, a Writer, and an Opinionated Toddler Form a Family. ( http://unlikelyorigins.blogspot.com/ )

As someone who both subscribes to ezines and produces one for my community, I have to say that the secret to success when it comes to overwhelm is not necessarily a slash and burn but a conscious decision of what is serving you and what is not.

Personally I have the newsletters I receive automatically sorted into folders (using Outlook rules) and then I review them weekly or so. If I find there are some I never feel called to read, I unsubscribe. No drama, no overwhelm. I have received great value from many of them including being notified of new products, services, offerings, that I would have missed otherwise (and that I really benefited from).

As someone who sends newsletters I am very conscious about what I send to my list. Personally it is an every-other week publication with occasional solo mailings to let them know about something special either I am doing or one of my partners are offering. I only recommend stuff I truly have used and can comment on.

While there are certainly people who are just promotion happy, for the most part I know the entrepreneurs I know truly want to give you value and serve. It isn't about trying to "get your money"... trying to group everyone into that category is an over-generalization and does a disservice to me and many of my colleagues.

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company
http://www.thepaulagcompany.com

Learn 5 Steps to Move from Fear to Freedom ( http://www.thepaulagcompany.com/feartofreedom ) (free)

despite feeling like work, unsubscribing is definitely worth the feeling to see an inbox with only personal, work-related or job search-related emails.

i have found that the gmail filters and priority mail features work the best in reducing spam and unimportant mail, if that helps at all.

clevelandboop.wordpress.com ( http://clevelandboop.wordpress.com )

I am in the early process of doing this myself. That is, I decided to do it and unsubscribed from two things. And then got annoyed and just deleted the rest. This post has inspired me though...starting tomorrow, I will take the extra 5 seconds to unsubscribe instead of just deleting!

I just either do not read or delete emails I do not want. I might miss a lot of important messages this way, but in the days of Facebook the people I really want to talk to can contact me that way.

This article is so timely. Sometimes I need "permission" to remind myself it's okay to dump stuff. And it's nice, going in to the holidays, to feel I have control over one piece of my life!

Nancy G www.justtherightthings.com ( http://www.justtherightthings.com )

I have separate email accounts, too--I use one for when I have to give my email address to a company (and that's where all the junk goes), and the other for personal email.

NEVER give your email or phone number to store clerks when they ask--it really is okay to say no! That's a quick way to rack up some email/text subscriptions when you're just trying to be nice. They always say, "it's just so we can send you coupons," but I always opt out.

I blog about books, life and writing at Check, please! ( http://www.emilycsims.com/ )

Never book travel without a coupon code ( http://travelated.com/travel-deals )!

BTW: This has been inspiring me to unsub from the stuff I really, really don't read that comes to my inbox. Thank you.

Contributing Editor Jenna Hatfield (@FireMom ( http://twitter.com/FireMom )) blogs at Stop, Drop and Blog ( http://stopdropandblog.com ) and The Chronicles of Munchkin Land ( http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com ). She is a freelance writer and newspaper photographer.

The power! Goodbye to YOU! and YOU! and YOU! Mouahahahaha!

For a while I LOVED getting so much email. I felt so important, ha. But then I realized what kind of mental clutter it was creating and what I was losing because of it. So, gone. Gone!

When I was doing my unsubscribing, some services allowed me to say "Just send me less email", and on a few of them I did select that option. It was a softer way of cutting the cord. But odds are the next email I get from them I'll probably unsubscribe anyway, ha.

...just letting one email address get taken over by the spammers, for exactly the reason you state - sometimes there's something in there that I might need, you know? But I decided it was still the kind of noise I was trying to disengage from. If I find I'm missing out on too much then I might try that tactic, though.

There's a bunch of stuff that I do that means I will always get a pile of email, but at least now that pile is (getting to be) all relevant, you know? I remember the days when I used to think, sigh, I hardly get any email. Careful what you wish for, I guess. :)

I don't think I was more than 3/4 of the way through your post before I was rapidly hitting "unsubscribe" in my own email box. You are so right!

I feel better already!

Tori is the creatrix behind Cellar Door Beauty ( http://cellardoorbeauty.wordpress.com ), an unconventional beauty blog. 

I have the same "comdition." I wanted to get every piece of information or offer I could get for a while--I think I treated it like a shopping addiction of sorts?

For a short, short while it was fun watching the message light on BlackBerry blink so often, but then it got exhausting!

I think I am going to take an entire day off and delete as many unnecessary subscriptions possible!

Sheesh!

Susan Rawlings@susansboutique
Twitter:
Email: boutiquesearchmarketing@gmail.com

Yes! I've been working on this over the past month or so. When I get a standard mass e-mail, I pause before hitting 'delete' and decide whether I want to delete just this one note, or sever the incoming tide.

Some marketers all us to reduce the number of emails received (monthly instead of weekly), or set preferences (only send me info about kids clothes from Gap, not everything!)

Good luck with the continued goal of cleaning out your inbox!

Happy Reading!

Dawn

www.sheIsTooFondOfBooks.com ( http://www.sheistoofondofbooks.com/ )

I have one email address that I use for shopping online, for registering for stuff, etc. I've had it for over 10 years.

Yes, it gets a lot of junk but that's OK. When I AM shopping, I can also go to that box and often find a coupon or promo code.

I don't micromanage that box - 98% of stuff never gets looked at. I check my order confirmations and stuff, that's it.

I have another email box that I use for people I know. This one I check. It does NOT get junk - I've kept it pristine for over 5 years now.

I use that one to check 3 different email accounts - the formal name that I use for professional stuff, the blog email, and the friend email. All that stuff comes into that one gmail account using POP3.

Works great! I like my set-up.

JustLinda

fabulously imperfect Nothing to See Here... Just Linda ( http://justlinda.net )

Twitter @JustLindaSTL

Yeah. It's ridiculous.

I have my main email account which is the one used as the catch-all.

Then I have an email for blog 1 - threeseven.

Then I have an email for blog 2 - ecochick.

Then I have a few old accounts that were used for various purposes and still might have emails coming in, so they have to be checked.

It's mental.

Re picky about the inbox... I love the Priority Mail that Gmail has now. But it doesn't work on my email client. :(

I got soooooo tired of all the circular emails I was getting pitching me this and that. I got tired of the word for word identical tweets promoting someone else's product. Then I waded in to limit an online bullying situation among some far bigger bloggers than I and it was the end. Unsub, unsub, unsub.

I became my own guru.

I have two email addresses. My goal is to have fewer than 25 emails in my inbox. I can't stand it if I have more. I find it oppressive.

Plus, I sign up and unsub all the time.

Alison Golden writes at The Secret Life Of A Warrior Woman ( http://alisongolden.com )

I don't understand why people have some many email accounts. I have one. yet i get tons of crap because i freely give out me email address but i don't understand why people have so many different accounts. i have slowly been unsubscribing to things i never find useful but i feel bad unsub'ing to blogs and that's a big chunk of mine. i currently have over 500 unfiled emails but they are all read. just kept as new for one reason or another and then not always dealt with. i was up to 890 at the beginning of this week and have done some work to clean out. i'm hoping to be down to 100 by the end of next week

A lot.
I have several email addresses dedicated to the various email signups, whether it be for discounts, ebooks, linkedin/fb notifications..it's nuts!

But like you, it's great to purge and click unsubcribe. I feel so much lighter afterwards.

I'm also picky about who I let into my actual inbox and make sure they aren't just going to clutter it up.