A Month of Less: Email Simplifying

One thing that I find eats up a lot of my time is email.  Whether it's checking & responding to the important ones, or deleting/ignoring the spam/mailing lists.  My inbox is so full that it gets overwhelming sometimes.  Aside from my own Gmail account, I have a shared Hotmail account with my husband, as well as a work email account.  One helpful thing that Gmail has done lately is to separate your emails into 3 categories: Primary, Social, and Promotions.  It makes it easier to deal with them in this way.  But I still end up with so many emails (especially when I sign up for a newsletter in order to win something...).

So today's goal was to simplify my email. All 3 accounts.  Unsubscribe to any and all newsletters that do not interest me, then print any important information, then delete any old, useless emails.  That should leave me with a few important ones left, which  I can sort into folders. 

I started with my Gmail, which had been sitting for so long, gathering spam and newsletters.  I unsubscribed from 18 (!!) different newsletters/blogs.  I kept a few subscriptions, but I may change that in the next day or two.

I found 3 emails that I had been keeping so I could print coupons or receipts, and did that.

Then I went through and deleted all kinds of old correspondance (why do I still need the names from our 2012 Christmas gift exchange?!).  And then I saw how empty my inbox was.  Wow!  It took about a half an hour, but was definitely worth it.

Hotmail was next. I printed off some more receipts, deleted a ton of messages, and unsubscribed from a few mailings. 

Lastly I tackled my work email.  There is no spam or newsletters, but I tend not to delete many messages there.  So I went through and got rid of so many - much better!!

I think I'm about done now. I'm also going to stay on top of things, by blocking/unsubscribing to anything else that shows up.  I'm hoping that this will save me a lot of time.  I'm already feeling much more organized!