Value your own time. I value your time.

I have written recently about how I am always so panicked into getting the most from my time. 

I have been getting more and more relaxed about it, and as I get older, my time is getting shorter, but my choice of how I use my time is getting more valuable.

So, this morning then – WTAF! (I thank my daughter for that acronym as she uses it all the time, and yes, she is a grown-up), I woke up to an inbox full of email.

I went from having an empty inbox the night before to 316 emails and an almost equal amount unread in my junk box. I love email subscriptions because it means you have great control over what you read and when. You are the master of your own world. 

Try it, surf the internet and load up on the sign-ups by giving out your email (not your real one, winky eye). 

It is a good deal.

That is until you get a stuffing. Like me, this very fine morning.

I think someone or something (a bot thingy) sold out my details because I was on the end of an email pile-on. It was likely my fault because I do sign up for so much free sh*t.

Free stuff is everywhere on the internet, and some of it is so much better than a book that you would buy in a book store. A lot of it is a teaser for something else. Designed to get you hooked by electronic magnetism to some site promising you the earth, only to sell you false hope based on the quality free stuff. 

A sales funnel, go figure.

It is cool. I am good with the significant attempts to snag me and others because everyone is out to make a living. I also say good on them for screwing around with all the historical business models that are pointlessly taught in thousands-of-dollars MBA’s.

The MBA sh*t in itself is a f*cking con job half of the time.

I knew someone who wanted to spend almost one hundred thousand bucks (in debt) on getting an MBA from a ‘great school’ and yet didn’t want to take a slight pay cut to move into the industry they had coveted. 

Some people just think differently from me because they saw that cost as a long term investment – I saw it as a rip-off. Do the maths over your life-time (they were in their 30’s), and you will know how you are getting taken for a ride if you take that route.

Why do I mention the MBA con job? Because that was one of the fruitless emails that were at the top of my now stuffed email inbox.

I am used to having around a hundred to a hundred and twenty new emails in my inbox on a typical morning, and I have timed how long it takes to clear them. 

Getting through them will take me half an hour in the morning. I go through a routine of setting the timer, reading and binning quickly, saving what’s worth it into my’ second brain – my knowledge and research reference tool – and then getting ready to respond to anything I need to attend. It is quick and efficient, and I have got it down to a T.

My great tip for you is to use the excellent ‘Day One’ app and add the email address for your Day One account into your contacts list. When you see something in your inbox that you want to add into your (second brain), email it to the day one app. 

Set a new journal (call it your second brain) inside the app and use the tagging system. Your email will appear in the main journal, so drop it into your new journal when it arrives. Note: you can email directly to the new journal – have a look in the settings.

This is a very effective tool for managing information.

But not this morning, someone is f*cking with me, and it is excellent. Because it has worked for them… I have discovered new stuff and will subscribe to what they have to offer. Jobs a good one for them and for me. It’s a Win-Win situation.

The only challenge now is managing time, so I think it is an opportunity to do another email unsubscribing exercise. There is no way I can get through over a hundred and fifty emails in half an hour, so something is gotta give.

So my lunchtime for today will be a cup of coffee and a careful trimming, using a hammer, to thin out my subscriptions.

I need the inbox space and the time back, so I aim to get below the hundred mark each day and use my junk box controls.

Does anyone really understand their junk box controls? It’s a f*cking mystery to me, but I will try.

Anyway, I need to get the time and space back…

Because I want to go and subscribe to new and fresh stuff.

So today, I will be unsubscribing like Tidal Music subscribers.

Which, incidentally, is another new email.

Junked.

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