A whole lotta purging going on

Yahoo email recently added a new application called Automatic Organizer. It works by categorizing your emails into folders by type, such as shopping, social networking, groups, finance. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and I’ve come to understand that I get dozens of daily emails that I don’t want to read. Gap.com? I never open you, nor do I shop with you more than once or twice a year. So why am I giving you 10 seconds of attention every day as I delete your emails? I’ve been annoyed by these emails I signed up for in order to get 10% off some purchase years ago for, well, years. I’ve also subscribed to a daily horoscope email, the Daily Om spiritual guidance email, two daily emails from my church, Delight.com’s daily email … and lately I’ve been deleting it all.

I’ve been too lazy to unsubscribe, until now. Or reluctant maybe.

Even though these spammy emails are annoying, sometimes they are the only emails I get in my personal account in a day. The Automatic Organizer has shown me that I rarely get email from real people, and if I think about that fact too much, it’s a bit depressing. When the robo-mailers reach out and touch me, it means I exist!

For the past week, I’ve been unsubscribing to almost all of my email subscriptions. I feel sad, like I’m letting go of old friends who really only used me anyway, but it felt kind of good to be used. Yes, it was my Last Chance to Save 15% at Banana Republic, but I am not shopping for clothes right now so why do I care? Southwest Airlines and Frontier have been nothing but teases, with their airfare sales to places I am not traveling to, because I have no money for travel at all right now.

The process of unsubscribing is supposed to be easy, per the CAN-SPAM law. Most of the time, it is as simple as clicking a link, then clicking a button to confirm, and I’m off the list. Other times, I’m required to login to some account for which I have no recollection of username or password and “manage my subscriptions.” If I can’t unsubscribe in one-click, I’m clicking the SPAM button. (Take THAT! Body & Mind Fitness!). I’m even unsubscribing to most of the email newsletters from organizations I give to. I figure all of them are posted online and if I really want to catch up, I’ll visit their websites.

I wonder if all of my unsubscribing will reduce my compulsive email checking.

My Facebook account is getting leaner too. Last month, I realized I had over 300 “friends.” Most of these friends were people who I’ve crossed paths with over the years. And while it was fun at first to see where they are and what they’re doing and what their kids look like, after a while it felt like I was at a cocktail party looking over their heads for my date to trigger the party escape plan. I’ve gone through my friends list, whittling it down to the people who I’m either actually friends with, or who I know read my blog via the Networked Blogs function. In the process, I accidentally unfriended a couple of people I didn’t mean to unfriend, and had to refriend them. (Take that, spellcheck–those are actual words in today’s vernacular!). I also have received a few friend requests for refriending. Some I’ve granted, others I haven’t.

Such as Bad Boyfriend Dan, my first fiance. I gave his request a moment or two of thought, then replied to him, “I wish you well, but I’ve moved on.” Wow. I had no idea I’d let go that much.

I’ve also gone through my daily blog reading list and cut it down to a somewhat manageable 35 from about 100. And I’m not reading my blogroll every day, but just a  few times every week. I’ve also done some of the usual clothes-and-belongings purging I do in the fall. I’ve made one trip to Goodwill, even donating that old laptop with the brand-new hardrive but broken CPU fan to an organization that fixes them and gives them to school kids in Africa. Lauren and I went through her old DVDs and we gifted my sister with about a dozen of them for her daycare business. Today, I’m going through Lauren’s room to 86 all the stuff she doesn’t use. It takes a lot of time to take care of it.

All of this purging is a result of the No. 1 question in my mind right now: How do I really want to be spending my precious time? What brings me joy? I’m on the verge of something here, and I know I need my life to be lighter when it comes to be.