You can't read everything...

If you're a newer Triple H reader - I should start by saying my 2014 mantra is: You can do anything but not everything. I'm currently applying this theme to my inbox. I don't even want to tell you how many emails I get a day. It's embarrassing. Google has done a great job of separating them by "real mail" "social mail" and "promotional mail" but my slightly obsessive nature makes me still want to open ever email that comes in.

But - I've made a decision. I need to clear off some of this e-weight. I'm not going to be afraid to hit the "unsubscribe" button. I have a list of my "dailies" that I enjoy and most of those will stay - but I only want to read something I can get something out of. I mean, duh, that should be obvious, right?

With the way emails come in to Gmail - I am concentrating on my "promotions" section. Here are the catagories I came across and how I dealt with each one.

Brand emails - These are the ones from Gap, West Elm and Children's Place. I'm only keeping ones that meet two qualifications: I actually shop there and they send coupons regularly.

Members only / deal site emails - These are hard for me to let go - but I know I should. We are trying to cut our expenses so the frivolous spending that comes from these emails isn't helpful. My solution is moving these over to my other email address. I'll probably slowly start unsubscribing from these as well.

Blog post emails - There really isn't much of a reason for these if I am following the blog on Bloglovin'. So I've been checking to make sure I'm following the blogs I'm interested in on Bloglovin' and unsubscribing from the email alerts / newsletters.

Dailies - Like I said, most of these will stay - for now. Over the next few months I'll try and see how often I actually click on the content they send me and a few might get deleted at that point.

Political emails - I am unsubscribing from them all. I'm sure these come from making donations so they'll pop up again at some point - but for now, I never read them and I make contributions on my own time (and terms) so they really are useless for me. And in election years (like this one) I get TONS.

Other: These are emails from sites and magazines that I'm some how signed up for. I'm weighing these based on content and how often they email me. Some of these like Kraft, iVillage and moms.com are being unsubscribed from. Others like Real Simple and Martha Stewart I'm just cutting back on how often and which newsletters they send me.

So after all this cleaning out of my inbox - I'm feeling MUCH better. And my life is already feeling simpler and lighter. How often do you use the "unsubscribe" feature?

More info: Welcome to any readers from the various link parties this post is shared on! Also, some links included may be affiliate links.