Something in a recent David Allen and 43Folders podcast convinced me to execute on a "someday maybe item - unsusbscribe to 90% of all the email lists" I'm getting to my primary personal email address (I'll work on work email later - already on my someday maybe list).
The truth of the matter is that I don't actually read most of these but spend about 1 second deciding to delete them or read them with 99% of the time being the delete decision. Every delete though generates two unanswered questions: 'What did I just miss?' and 'What if it was important?' Which is more thinking and worrying than I really need.
Here is the current list (in no particular order):
United Cruise, Wired, GoDaddy, Audible, InformIT, WalMart, Gryonix, MP3Motivators, Nancy's Recipe Newsletter, SPOW, iRobot, HIT, Crutchfield, Moutain Dew, HP, Dell, FilePlanet, Nuance, Oriental Trading Company, Symantec, Stratfor, Toyota, Punch Software, Maximum Impact News, KMWorld, Kodak, Nitewise, Nordstrom, Iomega, ARTISTdirect, CRI, LHM, Vons, Sony, Billy Graham, Forbes, OfficeMax, Truly Nolan, Classmates, Rick Warren, Atari, Verizon, PC Magazine, DiVX, Direct2Drive, and Yahoo Sports.
Only a couple asked why I was unsubscribing (I expected more questions), and a few were a complete pain and I'm still fighting with them via accounts/usernames/passwords that I don't have nor have managed to keep.
If my analysis is correct and each one was a second to delete, then I could see a maximum of ~60 seconds of more productivity on any given day if they all send me email on the same day. My current guess that over a week, I'll have a net increase of 5-6 minutes productivity time, plus less distractions from more meaningful productivity and less worry in addition to no unanswered nagging questions.
