Your Mailbox is Full

Lately I've found myself hitting Select All and Delete in my email box. I used to enjoy scrolling through the various newsletters and news publications.  I used to have time to do it too, I'm not sure what changed there.

Email has kind of fallen out of vogue, where it used to be the main way to communicate.  Now there is messenger, texting, snapchat; lots of other more immediate ways to communicate.  Although I'm not great at texting (I have stories, omg) and I just haven't gotten the hang of snapchat.  (kellwynn03) I do enjoy the immediacy of it.

So, what's in the mailbox you didn't ask:

I get news updates from the local papers and New York Times.  I usually just scroll the headlines and move on.  There is so much "BREAKING NEWS" anymore that I tend to ignore them.  I used to enjoy news aggregates too but I've unsubscribed from most of those too.

Washington Post has a lot of cool newsletters, if you dig that kind of thing.  The Lily, The Skimm are also good.  While trying to remember The Skimm, I found this page:  60+ Fantastic Newsletters
There is a lot of good content out there.  It's just sussing out what works for you.

I get bloggity updates and those are prioritized so I see them.  Emails from friends.  Lots of car stuff.  If you peek closely, you'll see that there are food newsletters. (GASP!)  I'm trying to have more than five things that I cook on the regular.  This has been met with mediocre at best success.

When I was on disability, I signed up for a bunch of health newsletters with the good intention of following through.  They still arrive but unfortunately, they mostly go unread.  I don't know why I just don't unsubscribe. 

I also have two churchy emails that I am consistently inconsistent with reading.  I discovered one because a guy friend kept posting links on his social media and it kept catching my eye.  What made it interesting was the it was like Guy Faith so it's direct and straightforward.  I don't attend church and my beliefs are - to quote Stephen Colbert - anemic. I admit to hitting delete on these quite a bit. 

My favorites are:
CityLab from The Atlantic
Fast Company 
Vanity Fair
Rolling Stone
Real Simple - but not always

The death knell for any newsletter is if I have to click a link to read the rest of the article. Sorry, nope.  People, Entertainment Weekly and Oprah are super guilty of this one.  Or if they are spammy with the Win The HGTV House and clickbaity kinds of emails.

I do get electronic bills and have found that works for me.  Occasionally I will miss something but it's better than a folder of papers and envelopes sitting in a drawer. The more trees that can be saved, the better.

One of the more important things I had to learn and do is to make sure everything is sorted.  Store emails and political requests go into their own folder.  Social media updates go into another.  I do appreciate gmail for that feature.  Otherwise, I fear I would read nothing.

Now I just need to work on hitting that unsubscribe button.