Week 1: Unsubscribe

Digital decluttering has been foremost on my mind. I don’t know how dozens of stray websites with daily offers of stuff I do not need find their way to my email. Some, I had subscribed to in my past life, in a not-so-deliberate act of my attachment to material therapy. But others, I do not even know about. This month, I have actively taken time out to unsubscribe myself from all the email lists that I am no longer interested in. I do not want to start my day virtually sweeping clean my mailbox.

I don’t remember the last time I bought a book from Barnes & Noble, but they kept sending me offers. Amazon is notorious in sending me follow-up emails if I even so much as look for a hairpin on their website. Hostelworld and easyJet still keep sending me deals for Europe travel, although I have left Europe long back. I once took a cruise ship from Germany to Norway, and they still keep sending me deals in German (which makes it harder to find their “unsubscribe” button). I will never figure out how I got to be on the email list for Baby Gap, of all things. I had once actively subscribed to Seth Godin’s blogs, but I have outgrown that content. In my previous life (meaning, many years ago), I was subscribed to Bath & Body Works, but it is cheaper to buy things at full price than get sucked into their bottomless abyss of “buy-3-get-3-free” offers. Now, if I need to buy one, I just buy one, and not six of the same kind. Seattle Public Library still keeps sending me emails, although I have been gone from Seattle for 8 years now (completely my fault, I admit).

And then, there are newsletters from photo websites, offers to send people flowers in India (why on earth?), and travel deals to places I am never likely to visit, like Bora Bora. 

It may sound like a petty thing, but I do not want to start my day reading and deleting pointless emails. I have actively started unsubscribing to declutter. I no longer provide my email id for future offers every time I buy something at Macy’s. Even after weeks of decluttering, a stray offer email, just like a stray mosquito, will buzz every now and then until I swat it away. But overall, I am done waking up to soul-inspiring emails of sales and deals about things I do not need.

Have you uncluttered your mailbox lately? And what are you changing in your life in week one?

sunshine

Also read: 52 small changes