De-cluttering

It got a bit like waiting in eager anticipation for all those Christmas or birthday cards or, if you're still on the pull, for all those Valentine cards. Yes, you've guessed it, seeing how many emails I'd got.

When I was away and without an internet connection, I waited until I got home to open my computer and, wow, my heart soared, I've got 100 emails. I must be a really popular chap! Now I can spend an hour or so catching up with all this important communication stuff and feel confident that I still have place in the world. I can even drop the hard statistics into conversations (so long as I don't become a internet bore).

STOP! What's that I hear you say?

Don't kid yourself, you're not that popular.
Oh yes I am.
They don't want you. All they want is your money. 
But they're interesting emails (trying to sound confident). 
No they're not, you always delete them. 
But what will I do if they're not there anymore?
How about starting an interesting Blog?
Oh funny!  
OK just think about it! 

So, responding to my inner self, I started to trawl through them and, unsurprisingly, I found only a few were really worth looking at.

How much of this stuff is actually needed? How much could I get rid of for good and not notice they're gone? So I started to de-clutter and, wherever I could, I unsubscribed the little blighters. I kept only the essential stuff like EA, GOBA and IWA alerts but the rest went straight into, what the Americans call, the Trash folder (why can't we call it the rubbish bin?). 

To give you an idea of the irritating reminders and updates that fell to my outstretched delete finger, they included:

Trainline and National Express, Travel Lodge and Ryan Air, Green King and Adnams, Visit Suffolk (or somewhere warmer), Amazon and Ebay, Money Saving Expert and Saga, BT Sport and Twitter, Safe Cracking for beginners, Speed Dating on a budget, Sky Diving News and Extreme Sport Insurance, Emergency First Aid for the Over 60's, Basic Amputation and Taxidermy, Dressing up in camouflage and gatecrashing the annual Bravo Two Zero Reunion.

OK, perhaps not all of these were actually in my inbox but you get the idea but at the end of my unsubscribing binge, I felt so much better. It was a bit like cleaning out my shed and throwing away the dried up paint pots I've kept since the 1970's (I had always hoped those tins of purple and orange emulsion would eventually come in handy but they didn't).

Now, when I open up my in-box and cast my eyes over the list of emails, I can clearly see that, well, nobody wants me any more!