I Deleted Over 6000 E-mails and It Felt So Good

You read right. How, you might ask, did it get so insanely insurmountable?

Like many of you, I get a lot of daily e-mails and they don’t necessarily get deleted. In this case, the account holding the 6000+ e-mails never saw the delete button in over three years.

It was an account I started with, and then slowly stopped using but kept getting spam, the random important e-mail and not much else.

And when not much else adds up to over 6000 e-mails, something drastic eventually has to get done.

It took months for me to work up the nerve to do it. But there I was staring at the number, thinking to myself “this is ridiculous”. I may have lost a few personal or important e-mails from 2010 on, but it was the price I had to pay for letting it get so bad.

And you know what? It was like a huge weight had been lifted from the moment the inbox and trash were empty.

Here’s the thing, whether you are collecting tangible documents or e-documents, it amounts to the same thing: clutter. And clutter of any kind can slowly smother your sense of liberty and order.

My goal this summer has been to get my document clutter under control because, let’s face it, if I haven’t finished an e-conversation I started in 2010 yet, chances are I won’t be and no amount o e-mail clutter will help change that.

Do you have a ‘vintage’ account collecting e-dust? I promise if you delete it, you will feel soooo good. It was really cathartic for me. And just like my wonderful idol, Peter Walsh says, once you begin the act of de-cluttering it’ll snowball.

Next up, my main e-mail account. For those following me on Instagram, you’ll know the number in my Inbox for that one (it’s not nearly as bad!).

And now that I mentioned it, why don’t you start following me on Instagram? (You can find me at Julia_aka_MamaMOE) I finally made the move thanks to Amber Rehman (@AmberzCorner) and it is really addictive (you were right, Amber, I love it).

Have you got a clutter goal ahead for the rest of your summer? Let me know in the comments below and we can help each other through!