[2022-10-19] Digital minimalism: email subscriptions
Every few days, I receive a call from a certain company offering to clean my air ducts. I've tried to stop the calls, registering a complaint with the National Do Not Call List operated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, asking the company to put me on its do-not-call list, informing the company's agents that I'm on their do-not-call list. To no avail, the calls keep coming. My new approach is to say nothing when the call comes in (my phone is set to answer calls automatically, which is convenient except when a telemarketer calls). When I hear the familiar "Hellooooo?" I quietly hang up without saying a word, and then block the number. Though my strategy is easy, taking no more than a second or two to implement, I would much prefer to stop the calls altogether.
You'd think, therefore, that I would take the same approach in other areas of my life—email, for example—but I don't. Every day, I receive about 20 new emails in the Promotions folder of my electronic Inbox. In almost every case, I've signed up for a points program, willingly handing over my email address to acquire advantages that, in retrospect, pale in comparison to the disadvantages of managing all those messages. Though unsubscribing from such emails was always an option, I rarely took this step.
Until today. This afternoon, I unsubscribed from 50 services. The majority of them amounted to little more than advertising: the latest books to hit the market, new decor available at a home decorating store, weekly sales at a hardware store, a promised deal on a newspaper subscription, newsletters that I thought I would read but never had the time to do so.
As I was going through my email, I thought to myself, "I wouldn't put up with getting a call every day from this company to tell me about their sales, so why do I accept a daily email from them about products I'm not even in the market to buy?" Unlike calls from telemarketers, I do have some control over what comes into my electronic Inbox. Unsubscribing from these emails is like saying, "don't call me—I'll call you" or putting up a sign at my door saying "no flyers please" or writing on my out-of-office message that "I'm away from the office and will not be checking emails."
Today's work was part of my efforts to declutter my devices. As I wrote in Digital minimalism: step one, "digital minimalism is about optimizing our use of communication devices (such as phones, tablets, laptops, computers) and managing our online activities (such as email and our engagement in cyberspace)." Furthermore, "It is about using apps, utilities and information to enhance our peace and sense of accomplishment, not to create stress and exhaustion."
That post was inspired by an article called Digital Minimalism: Habits & Tips to Declutter Your Devices. It suggests four places where we can declutter: email, phone, cyberspace and laptop. With respect to email, the article recommends seven steps:
- Turn of notifications
- Delay your answers
- No email before 11 AM
- Don't reply to everyone [in other words, avoid Reply All]
- Write concise letters
- Close it when you're done
- Unsubscribe from newsletters
It was the final tip that stood out for me as my biggest opportunity for improvement.
I expect that I will continue to weed out subscriptions for services that just didn't happen to fall into the period of the emails I reviewed today, However, I now feel better prepared to bat away any unnecessary incoming emails like the pesky wasps that were so prevalent this summer.
As I said to one Jenesis reader who commented on my first post pertaining to digital minimalism, each of these small steps is about living a more peaceful life, with a minimum of disruption.
