Other people’s to-do lists

Fancy a slightly terrifying challenge for the end of the year?

If your email looks anything like mine, there’s a handful of important stuff and a truckload of stuff I’ll never read.

Email consumes a significant portion of the power used for ” the internet”, as expertly guesstimated in this Quora reply.

I have 4 email addresses I use for various reasons, and aside from my main work address which is usually at or close to zero, the total number of emails across the rest of them, last time I checked, was over 21,000…

Last Monday I picked one of my inboxes and deleted everything.

I might’ve lost something important, but what I gained was an instant lightness; complete relief.

My challenge to you: empty your inbox.

Does that terrify you?

For good reason I’m sure – not everything in your inbox is completely expendable, but you might be surprised just how much is.

If the challenge of deleting everything is just too much, here’s the modified challenge:

(side note: If you use Gmail, there’s a “snooze” feature which allows you to hide the email until a later date.)

• Block out 10 minutes.
• Move already actioned, but still important emails into folders
• Snooze unactioned important emails, but try limiting yourself to no more than 20.
• Delete the rest.

Save some earth resources, free up your brain, and start the year without a nagging to-do list that other people wrote.