I recently started cleaning up my inboxes. They were full of hundreds of emails that I either never opened or planned to follow-up on didn’t. They’re not completely cleared out, but I’m making progress.

Things I Clean Up

With the amount of information that comes in daily, it’s necessary for me to clean things up regularly. Along with email, I also like to clean up the list of podcasts I listen to in PocketCasts and the blog posts I have in Feedly.

What to Keep

I’m not sure why, but it’s hard for me to delete things that seem like they contain useful information. In order to overcome my FOMO, I have to decide whether the information is useful now or later. If it’s useful now, it’s worth reading now. If it’s not useful now, I need to have the confidence that I can find the information later when I need it so it’s safe to clean up now. It’s always available in archived email search or a Google search. I mean really, when is the last time I couldn’t find the information I needed? There’s usually too much info available.

It’s freeing to have a clean inbox. Without all those things I “should” be reading/hearing/responding to, I have more time to focus on my goals.