---
title: "The Great Unsubscribe"
date: 2017-07-28
url: https://learningischange.com/2017/07/28/the-great-unsubscribe/
author: Ben Wilkoff
categories: ["Learning", "Productivity", "unsubscribe"]
tags: []
---

# The Great Unsubscribe

![](/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/1501038120_featured.png)

For the past 5 years, I have used a tool called [Unroll.me](http://unroll.me/) in order to take all of my subscription-based emails and “roll them into” a single digest. This includes every newsletter I have ever signed up for. It includes every account I have created for a web tool when they decide to try and sell me on a new feature or an upgrade. It also includes every promotional email and almost-but-not-quite-spam sender that uses Mailchimp or Constant Contact to send out messages.

At the beginning of the summer, I decided it was time to take a look at the results of this, and here they are:

- I had added nearly 1800 senders to my digest, and this caused nearly 100 messages to be “rolled up” into the digest every day of the week.
- I hadn’t opened a daily digest in over a year.

This means that a tool that was meant to save time and allow for me to get a better hold all of my promotional and serialized email was simply kicking the can down the road. I looked and over the last 5 years, I have accumulated over 100,000 of these messages and they are just sitting in my archived mail.

Armed with this data, I decided to embark on The Great Unsubscribe.

I turned off [Unroll.me](http://unroll.me/) and started aggressively tapping that unsubscribe button in every single one of the emails that came in. It is both incredibly satisfying and rediculously frustrating. It is satisfying because I really am cleaning up my workflows so that I can focus on the work and personal relationships I most want to cultivate. It is frustrating because I really have let this go for years too long.

This is the most concrete example I have for what distracting “sand” feels like as it fills up your bucket. Every time I tap on a Unsubscribe link, I have to take 30 seconds of distraction before getting back to my real work. This sand is getting into everything in my account, and I have to clear it out so I can make room for things that matter more.

The question I keep on thinking about each time I perform this task is, “What else can I unsubscribe from in my life.” Are there any conversations or investments of time that I am making that should be removed to allow for deeper impact and fulfillment.

I don’t have an answer yet, but I wonder if there is anything you see in our work (or your own lives) that could be Unsubscribed to.