I mistakenly thought I’d have TONS of time when my kids were on Christmas Vacation to get caught up 🙂 The good news is, I spent a lot of time just hanging out and enjoying my time with the kids. I thought they were going back to school yesterday, but Ole’ Hercules adjusted my expectations when he brought a couple feet of snow to us, and some bitterly cold temperatures. The kids were ecstatic to get their first 2 snow days AND extend their Vacation Break until Monday. As I began to try and clean up my email and sort things out, to try and Get Organized Electronically for the New Year, I saw on Facebook that I friend used Unroll.me *NOT SPONSORED OR ENDORSED* to get control of her email inbox. She joked that she had way too many subscriptions. Others commented that they had 250, 254, and 536 respectively. Then, I ran mine:
792! Clearly, I need some sort of intervention or something. No offense to anyone I unsubscribe from, but this is out of control, LOL. Unroll.me is a free service, which I definitely appreciate, after 5 unsubscribes it made me “Share to Continue Unsubscribing” but then it allowed me to unsubscribe as many as I wanted. Be careful not to get click happy though, look carefully at the name and sender address to be sure it’s not something you want to keep or Add to rollup. I ended up with 423 subscriptions. I plan to see what kind of impact this has over the next week or so, and then re-evalute and perhaps try the rollup system.
Next step, Google Calendar. I’ve used this for several years to help me meal plan, and keep up with doctor’s appointments, etc. I like that I can sync and check it on my phone so I don’t miss anything, and it sends me alerts to keep me on track. I am bad at cropping and deleting personal info. Excuse the white blanks 🙂 You can see on Sunday, I’m planning Beef Stew – I haven’t gotten to the rest of the week just yet, but it’ll be at the top like that for every day. It eliminates the “What’s for dinner tonight” dilemma, makes it easy to grocery shop (make a list of all needed items you don’t have on hand, shop the pantry first!), and I guess I accidentally cropped out the things I do first thing, every day -make kids breakfasts, lunches, snacks for school, do dishes, etc. I am a tad compulsive about email, so I alloted an hour each morning to check in and see what needs to be addressed. Hopefully unsubscribing to so many things will help keep that manageable. I try to do 1-2 loads of laundry each day, a quick pickup of the entire house, and deep clean one area per day, to keep on top of things. I’ve alloted an hour a day to social media management – a necessity in blogging, and an hour a day to each blog to write and schedule out posts, and sometimes an extra hour to write posts I’ve already committed to. I’m also eating Lunch with Logan (though it’s only showing once, for some reason) which is another story in and of itself each day. I had to take a hard look at everything on my plate and make some tough decisions about what is actually manageable for me to do. First, and foremost, I am MOM and I must make sure the kids and house are taken care of. Secondly, one of my kids is on the Autism Spectrum, one has ADHD, and I have RA among other issues. We have frequent doctors appointments that I work my schedule around. As much as I do love blogging, it has to be done around these other things. It’s not and can’t be a full time job for me in this season of life, and I am okay with that 🙂
I also check in with my bank, daily, online to make sure everything is as it’s supposed to be. I’ve moved to using the online system for refills, etc for our pharmacy so I can see what needs to be refilled, what’s ready, and how much it will be. I LOVE that I can also check it online if I’m at a new specialist to show them exactly what medications I am taking, and how much. Some of my email subscriptions must stay because I’ve elected to get most all statements electronically from anywhere I can. I have folders set up in my email that I can move those to once I’ve read them. Less paper in the house, and mail to worry about getting lost! The kids school has started sending out as many notices and flyers through email as they can, which also helps reduce paper clutter. I have decided this it the year for me to Get Organized Electronically, and hopefully stay that way!
What other tips or suggestions do you have to Get Organized Electronically?
jenn huey says
Because I enter numerous giveaways i will bet my subscriptions are way up there with plenty I can get rid of. I am going to get the unroll me system and use it soon
KD says
I set up filters in my email so that certain subscriptions or emails from certain people go directly to pre-determined folders.
Lara Clinton says
Wow, unenroll.me sounds good! I need to try it!
nenasinclair says
This is great info, I can never seem to find the time to clean out and organize my email!
nenasinclair says
This is something I need! My inbox is always way too full, and I never find the time to go through it all!