Unsubscribe ~ You’ve got mail

I did something that I’ve needed to do for a long time… I unsubscribed from over one hundred (yep, over a 100) lists I had subscribed to over the last few years.

After that… I decided it was time to delete a few bookmarks of sites I frequent far to much. Over the years, I had bookmarked literally thousands of sites — deleted all but ninety four, and that still sounds like a lot.

For some reason, memories of my aunt came to mind — we called her Sister.

I remember once while snooping around her house (I was like 5 or 6 years old), I discovered a spare bedroom filled with magazines; Redbook… Good House Keeping… Life, cooking magazines… gardening magazines… I mean this room was filled to the max.

She found me plundering in the room — I was just a kid, I was looking to see if I could find any comics or stuff that I liked — I didn’t.

I knew I was in trouble — but I still wanted to know why she had all these magazines, so I asked her, “Sister, what are you going to do with all these magazines?” — she said she was going to read them one day when she retired.

It’s funny how you can remember stuff when you were five or six years old, but yet you cannot remember your blood type (a post for another day).

I do not think she ever got a chance to read all those magazines, as it would have taken 10 or 20 years if she had read them non stop. You would have had to see the collection in this bedroom to believe it… it was cram packed with issues going back 20 years.

That’s kind of the way I felt about the bookmarks I deleted. I’ll get back to the sites one day to read what they are saying… but unlike Sister, I actually did every now and then — far to much.

All those bookmarks made me feel cluttered.

I would not say these sites are not worth visiting — they are, as most of them are relevant to the things I do — marketing, graphics, blogging, seo, product development, link building, social bookmarking and networking, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

But honestly, how many different articles, posts and sites do you need to read on how to create link bait or how to optimize your blog?

Most of it is the same old rehashed stuff.

Same thing with the email subscriptions.

Honestly, I found this to be my top time waster of anything I used to do.

I can’t remember who or where I heard it from… but a few years back, I remember someone saying you need to subscribe to all your competitors newsletters (to study what they are doing)… as well as Marketers lists who seem to know what they are doing… to see how they do it.

So I did.

Up until the last year or so… it wasn’t to bad.

In the past, I could skim through the emails in less than an hour a day — I only check my email four times a day as not to distract myself away from my daily tasks — but even this discipline was not helping me make the best use of my time due to the shear volume of email.

I was a Hamster on the treadmill… running as fast as I could, with no apparent end in sight.

Here lately though, it is truly out of control.

If I read every email I receive, I would be like Sister — I’d never finish. In fact, like her — I’d be going backwards as I cannot keep up.

I was truly spending four to five hours a day reading email — that time included a visit to the site in the email (where they were trying to sell me something), if a site to visit was included — there usually is one.

Usually, there was no value to me in reading the email — just value to the sender (if I bought what he/she was promoting).

If there was a video on the site — that’s not even included in the 4 or 5 hours I was wasting. Some of the videos are an hour long.

What a way to spend a day.

It’s no wonder time seems to be going by so fast… I spent most of my day (my life) doing stuff that really adds nothing to my families quality of living, much less any value to helping me build my business — I’m burning time.

So I decided to do a little house cleaning — I only kept sites bookmarked that I felt were a necessity.

The few sites I’m a member of, and those I feel bring value to my business.

This morning… I’m going through a withdrawal.

I sat here awhile staring at my monitor trying to figure out what I should be doing.

No more wandering… no more mindless surfing around… no hundreds of emails to read… what am I going to do with that extra five plus hours a day that I allowed people to steal from me?

Hmmm… guess I could do more meaningful tasks!

Like create a few products… work on some sites and blogs long overdue for updating… and how about I spend some quality time with my family.

What a novel idea.

Do the things that truly matter.

While editing this post (started it a few days days before my “Time Off” post), I received an email from Scott Boulch — a fellow Texan who’s emails I do read.

It’s not often I receive an email from him — but when I do, unlike most I receive — they add value to my business.

This one was no different.

Like he has done a few times in the past, he had written another “expose” of sorts ebook about Internet Marketing.

With my mindset being where it was, I downloaded the ebook and read it.

It was kind of weird really.

I don’t know him personally… I’ve never spoke to him — but the book’s content was along some of the very same lines as this post. It was like we had talked about this stuff.

Keep in mind… I had this post for the most part written before receiving his email.

I only mention his email as an afterthought.

Here’s a link to his free Internet Marketing Cure ebook.

I do not agree with everything Scott wrote… but we are for sure on the same page with our thinking.

The above is an affiliate link… it pays me a whopping fifty cents when you download the ebook — so I don’t think I’ll get rich telling you about it — plus, you really need to read it.

But hey, 50 cents times 2 million people… that would be a cool mil. I can dream a little, right.

That’s it.

If any of this sounds like you — maybe it is time that you too did a little house cleaning and got back to doing the things that bring value to your business, and those things that improves the quality of life for your family.

It’s an ongoing process, it requires focus and disclipine — but I know we can do it — just have to unsubscribe from some of those lists to keep from getting distracted.

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