When we think of clutter, it’s easy to focus only on what we can see. But there’s a different kind of clutter that can be just as distracting as visible clutter. This month, we turn our attention in the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to digital clutter, starting this week with an email cleanup.
Cleaning up digital clutter will simplify your life and save you time. Those are two great reasons, but have you ever thought about the environmental cost of digital clutter? I hadn’t given it much thought, until I read a great blog post by Caroline from Enviroline Blog. In her post 10 Ways to Reduce Your Digital Carbon Footprint, she pointed out the environmental impact of all those emails and digital files. So, this week’s decluttering exercise is a win-win for me and the environment. I love it!
This post was originally published in September 2021 and republished in October 2024.
What is the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge?
In this year-long journey, we’re tackling one task at a time with the goal of cleaning up and organizing our homes. If you’ve just joined us, no worries. You can jump right in with this week’s challenge. Just check out the first two posts in the series to download your free checklists.
You can get easy access to all previous weekly posts on the main Decluttering page.
Week 35 – Email cleanup
Last year, in the 31-Day Decluttering Challenge, I did a first cleanup of my email, focusing on unsubscribing from email lists. After removing my email address from 39 different lists, I noticed an immediate reduction in the amount of Inbox clutter.
This week, we’ll take things a step further by unsubscribing from more email lists, and also cleaning up email folders.
Let’s get started!
This week’s decluttering and organizing tips
Before we get to what I got rid of, here are my tips and learnings from week 35.
- Think before you subscribe! Before subscribing to an email list, think first about whether the emails you’ll receive from the list will be useful to you. If they don’t provide valuable information, or will just tempt you to overspend, don’t join the list.
- Unsubscribe from all emails that you regularly delete without reading.
- Think before you save! If you’re tempted to save an email for future reference, ask yourself if you will ever really look at it again. If it’s something like a receipt that you’ll need for a period of time, create a “Temporary” folder and put it there. If it’s an attachment you want to keep, save the attachment to your computer, or to the cloud, and delete the email.
- Clean up your email folders periodically. I had emails in my folders from over 10 years ago. I also had attachments of digital receipts that I had saved to my OneDrive, but I also kept the emails. Yikes! It helps to put a reminder in your calendar to do an annual cleanup.
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What I got rid of
This turned out to be a far more productive decluttering exercise than I expected. At the start of the week, I thought I’d probably just clean up a few more email subscriptions. When I ventured into my email folders, I was surprised at what I found.
In total, I unsubscribed from 18 more email lists. I also deleted a whopping 1,215 emails from my folders. WOW – a long overdue task for sure! And I’m proud that this cleanup has significantly reduced the carbon footprint of my email.
2024 Update
It has been three years so I’m rebooting the 52-Week Decluttering Challenge to see how much I can get rid of in 2024.
I’m amazed at how many emails can accumulate in three years! This time, I deleted 656 emails. The “Temporary” folder I created last time made the cleanup much faster and easier. I also unsubscribed from 30 email lists. And I set a reminder in my calendar to clean up my files once a year from now on.
So that’s week 35 done, and my digital footprint is a lot smaller thanks to this exercise.
If you have friends or family members who could benefit from a little less clutter in their lives, please share this post and spread the word!
How do you organize your emails? Tell us below.
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Last year, I spent a good afternoon unsubscribing from lists and newsletters and it was one of the best exercises ever. Love receiving far less things in my inbox as a result!
Yes! There’s nothing like an empty (or at least a skinnied-down) inbox!
I cannot stand emails sitting. I feel anxious just writing about it 🙂 Deal with it and delete it. Anything that really needs to hang around (travel plans, info that I need for the future, etc) then those go into a folder where I don’t have to see them everyday! As soon as that thing is done the email goes to trash. Even when I worked those emails were tossed as quickly as I could get rid of them. I’m the same with texts actually.
I hate a cluttered inbox, too! But I put things I want to keep in folders and “out of sight, out of mind” kicks in.
Easy to do Michelle. It has to be something that I know has a time frame that I will need to revisit sooner rather than later. Everything else has to stay in the inbox and I have to deal with it or toss it 🙂
Terrific reminders, Michelle. Thank you! 🥰
Thanks Vicki. Happy email cleaning! 😂
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Thank you for mentioning me! I think I’ve subscribed to a few too many lists so I’m going to go and unsubscribe 🙂
You’re welcome. Unsubscribing from all those emails has been a big stress buster! I don’t mind an empty Inbox. LOL
I’m such a document and email hoarder, but this weekend I got rid of all the unnecessary stuff – what a load off my back 🙂
Oh that’s fabulous! It does feel good, doesn’t it?
I tend to delete mine as I go along. It’s easier for me. 😀
That’s a good approach too. Saves time on cleanup later!
I recently did a digital declutter of, in addition to my emails, also the documents stored on my computer and Google Drive. It is important for me to update backups of my novels stored online.
Love your tips for unsubscribing from newsletters and clearing out old saved emails. I am making a temporary folder right away!
Thanks for sharing. <3
Thanks Jaya. I will be decluttering all my digital files in the coming weeks. It’s great to get on top of this stuff. Glad you liked the temporary folder idea!
Great points.. I really never take a moment to unsubscribe until the emails start to annoy me regularly lol… I have about 3 different personal emails.. One for spam (my old email with my maiden name, one for my blog, one serious email with my real name). All of my personal emails are a disaster lol.. My work email is beautifully sorted all the time. There’s already never any emails sitting in my work email inbox bc it gives me a bit of anxiety.. The only time emails sit in the inbox is if I have yet to look at it or if I can do something about it immediately.. Otherwise I read the emails and I file them into different folders: to do soon, waiting to hear back, pending expenses etc etc etc… It just makes it more streamlined and I save sent emails too for tracking lol
I am the same with my work Inbox. I hate having too many emails in there.
I like the idea of a temporary folder to keep emails for a short period. Great suggestion!
Thanks Suzanne. It will definitely make the cleanup easier!