Maybe it is just me, but as my “promotions” and “social” folders on gmail fill up, my anxiety goes through the roof.

I’m a saver, “a pack rat” as my mom would say. I like to think I get it from my grandmother, although that isn’t necessarily a compliment. In fact, it isn’t a compliment at all.

That need to hang on to everything, sentimental or not, is something that I’ve been working at getting better at. I remember saving all of my notebooks from high school, just in case I needed to look back on something during college…or because they had fun doodles from classroom lectures.

How many times have I been back through those notebooks? You guessed it…zero!

 

With technology being a huge part of the communication I do with my University students, I’ve started to notice how leaving emails untouched and unread can pile up quickly, especially when you are receiving written assignments by email by 30+ students at least once a week.

So today…I did the unthinkable (for me anyway) and I deleted the thousand plus messages sent by blogs I follow, companies I’ve given my email for coupons, among others. I didn’t let myself drift over the thought that I should scan each one to make sure it is important, and a part of me hopes that none of them were, but it was refreshing to be able to “select all” and “delete”.

Not only do those tabs get to be free of clutter, for a few minutes at least, but now as they come in I have empowered myself to unsubscribe and delete…because I haven’t really read them all along. I haven’t ever needed them all along. There is no amount of “keeping in touch” that matters if I’m going insane with the amount of “friendly and self-subscribed” spam.

Now I begin the long and dreary process of dwindling down my inbox. Sorry to all of you that have sat in purgatory for the longest time, waiting to be read and or responded to. A clear inbox will be mine eventually!

 

A little spring cleaning for the Southern Hemisphere spring season.

 

…if only someday I’ll feel this way about the old boxes of notebooks and scraps of paper.