Christa, Day 64: Today's Item Feels Like a Repeat, No?

Simplify your online life. If you have too much going on online, here are a few ways to simplify it all. Article here.

Is it just me, or does today's voluntary simplicity item feel like a repeat? I guess when you're less than 10 from the end of a cool 72 simplification items, you're bound to start consolidating previous ideas. Because I know for a fact we've hit email and how we use the Internet and our bulging RSS feeds and so on.

I'll just say this: My online life is about as uncomplicated as it can get. I work in online marketing. I blog. I keep up with what sometimes feels like hundreds of aunts and uncles and cousins via Facebook. I have a Twitter account for a growing business. I manage social media for clients. I have to research online every day for work. And sometimes I like to unwind by reading savings tips on r/frugal or listen to podcasts of the radio programs I missed during the day.

My online life is complicated, I suppose. It has to be because my job is essentially uncomplicating it for others. I'm in it so I can understand it so they will pay me to take it on for them. And it's a pretty fun job!

Julia's Day 64: In which I discuss falling off the inbox zero wagon

It's not that I particularly enjoy my cluttered inbox, but rather that I am afraid I'll accidentally delete something important related to the move.

Julia's Day 30: The opposite of Christa

Yeah, so I have well over 1,000 emails, including some dating back to 2005.

sigh.

Christa, Day 30: Well That Was Easy

I don't have much to say about today's voluntary simplicity idea:

Keep your email inbox empty. Is your email inbox overflowing with new and read messages? Do the messages just keep piling up? If so, you’re normal — but you could be more efficient and your email life could be simplified with a few simple steps. Read more.

Back in my college days I did have an email inbox that was out of control, but nowadays my email is inexorably linked to my work and so cannot explode into chaos because that would mean I was royally screwed. Email comes in, email goes out. Gmail is my friend. If it's professional and needs doing, it gets labeled TO DO and archived until I do it. If it's something that needs remembering, it gets a star. Everything else is filed or deleted. As labels become unnecessary - for example, labels associated with projects that are completed or clients from times past - I delete the label and all of the emails bearing said label. Easy peasy.

Julia's Day 15: Declaring email bankruptcy

I feel like I get out of today easy because I happen to have left my job recently. That said, my personal email inbox currently boasts over 3000 messages, and that's after several days' worth of active downsizing. Gross. Read all about it here!

Rebecca, Day 7: Limiting my communications

I'm back!

Day 7:

Limit your communications. Our lives these days are filled with a vast flow of communications: email, IM, cell phones, paper mail, Skype, Twitter, forums, and more. It can take up your whole day if you let it. Instead, put a limit on your communications: only do email at certain times of the day, for a certain number of minutes (I recommend twice a day, but do what works for you). Only do IM once a day, for a limited amount of time. Limit phone calls to certain times too. Same with any other communications. Set a schedule and stick to it.

Limit communications? Who, me??

I have an iPhone, and I constantly use it to check facebook, my email, and my google reader RSS feed (Day 60, I'm looking at you!). Whenever I'm bored--waiting in line or whatever--I check them reflexively.

On the positive side, I'm pretty easy to reach; I respond quickly to emails and facebook messages. But maybe it would be simpler to limit these things, scheduling them if possible--to not be connected all the time, and to let down time be downtime.

I've tried a couple of things already:

EXPERIMENT #1: Following the tip above, a few days ago, I set two daily alarms (12:45 and 4 pm) on my phone to prompt me to "check email." I decided not to check email at any other time. But there's always been some reason to. Plus, I always seem to be in the middle of something I don't want to stop when the alarm tells me to check my email. (The lack of a routine in summer makes working with the alarms difficult.) Experiment fail!

EXPERIMENT #2: A couple of days ago, I deleted the facebook and the google reader apps from my iPhone. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, and I hesitated (isn't one of the reasons we love our smartphones is their apps?).

The result: It's been refreshing to have some space! It reminds me of when I've traveled abroad for vacation and was worried about having no data plan (or a very limited one), but then kind of liked it. Perhaps I was splitting my attention too much and didn't realize it. Interesting!

So, what next?

EXPERIMENT #3: I'm going to run with the "vacation" idea and take an email vacation. The semester starts soon, so it's now or never. (Or, I suppose, now or December, when the semester is over.) Today, I am turning off my email accounts on my phone, and I am setting an autoresponder on both my work and personal accounts, stating that I will be offline for the next week.

Although I will actually check email now and then, as I will really need to send some work-related messages (I wouldn't want to ignore my lovely publisher!), I'll limit email-checking to when I'm at my desk.

Wish me luck! And if you need to reach me? Just call me. :)