January 19: Unsubscribe

I don't receive a lot of personal emails. Texting has taken the place of most of my email correspondence. If you had told me that would happen a year ago, I would have laughed you out the door. It's funny that one of the conveniences Kyle has set up for me is a data package on my phone. It's great, really. I can retrieve email, order a book on Amazon, and check the 10-day forecast with a few swipes of my finger.

I have noticed lately (okay in the last 19 days!) that the vast majority of my emails are from retailers. I've never really considered them "junk" since they are places and websites I've patroned. However, I've become increasingly more aware of the cycle I find myself in when I receive a commercial in my inbox. I click it. It opens. It lures me to some fabulous deal just a click away. I swipe my finger, squint to see the deal (my eyes are old and my phone is small), browse a little, close the page, delete the email, and go about my day. Typically I don't make purchases by opening my emails. Good grief... I am on so many email lists that if I purchased something even 5% of the time, I'd be broke by Tuesday! So purchases aren't really the issue. I began to calculate how much time I spend just opening and deleting merchant emails. Let's do the math...

There are (conservatively) a dozen vendors I can think of right now that send me daily deals. 10 or so more send them weekly. If I only spend a minute on each of those, I'm easily losing at least an hour and a half a week! Occasionally I'll delete one immediately, thus saving 45 seconds. But for every one that gets quickly trashed, another one lures me to browse an extra 30 seconds.

I don't know what has bothered me more this week: the fact that I didn't have any personal emails to speak of in my inbox or that I was feeling pangs of want that would remain unsatisfied. Maybe both were eating at me when I finally scrolled to the bottom of a recent advertisement and clicked on the little blue "unsubscribe" link. To the website... confirm... I'm done. 20 seconds, maybe. It felt so good I attacked the other 4 in my box. Today, 7 more. I'm almost excited to see them when I open my email because I know it will be a very satisfying farewell.

240 seconds (that's 4 minutes, Kyle ;) ) and I'm the owner of something more valuable than anything those email deals could have offered. I now have freedom from the temptation to browse, to purchase, to linger, to want. And I have an extra hour and a half on my hands this week. Maybe I'll get to take a nap!