Writer Productivity Tip: unsubscribe to as many mailing lists as you can
So far, I've managed to easily meet my goal of 500 words a day. I'm even thinking of upgrading to 1000 words a day, but am going to wait a couple of weeks to make sure I'm not just experience a burst of "beginning of the year resolution" enthusiasm.
How are the rest of you doing?
One thing I'm doing to help minimize wasted time: UNSUBSCRIBING TO UNNECESSARY MAILING LISTS. I've mentioned this a while back, but since then I've let a number of services put me on their mailing lists without doing anything about it. Instead, I just delete the messages as they come in, without reading them.
NO LONGER.
From now on, if I find myself about to delete a mailing list message, I'll think very hard about whether I should be on the mailing list at all. And instead of being lazy and just hitting the delete key, I'm going to take the time to scroll to the bottom of the message and figure out how to unsubscribe myself.
A related tip: never EVER put people on your promotional mailing list without asking their permission first. It drives me crazy when I start getting promo e-mails from an author with an accompanying message like, "Hey, I thought you'd be interested in my work. If you want to be taken off the list, just let me know." It immediately makes me want to NOT buy the author's book. Ok, rant over.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 11:24 AM
Reader Comments (7)
I went through about a month ago and unsubscribed to so much. I don't miss what I wasn't reading anyway and now I'm not so drained as to not be able to meet other goals.
Amen to that!
Yes, I think your suggestion is a good one. I find I am deluged with links and newsletters these days and often find myself reading them against my will (and then going off on tangents.)
I plan to unsubscribe to most of them.
Cheers!
Also, unsubscribe from as many RSS feeds as you can. I've just been through this process after a couple of weeks away over Christmas: 500+ unread articles gives you some perspective about what you can afford to not read. So I purged the RSS feed subscriptions.
I kept yours, though.
Thanks.
I did a big purge of newsletter lists last year from daily cyclists tips to sustainable living news. BUT I was just signing up again the other day at random sites i found interesting - grmph! Hard to not get enticed to get more and more info in your inbox.
I completely relate to this, I find myself wasting so much time with inbox sweeping. When it comes to subscriptions, less really is more!
-Tissot Tourbillon replicased camps deeply suspicious of one another shouting past each