How many eNewsletters do you receive every day? How many of them do you actually read? If you are me, you probably have had a cluttered inbox full of messages that you never open, let alone act on. eNewsletters have become a source of noise and distraction, rather than a valuable tool for communication and engagement. Not because they are forced upon us by their authors, but because there is something oddly seductive about the words 'sign up my our eNewsletter and keep up with all the news and events here at [insert anything!]'. In short, it's our fault not theirs and so it is in our gift to do something about it. Many of us sign up for newsletters that seem interesting or useful at the time, but end up ignoring them or deleting them without opening them but never actually doing anything about it.

I decided to take action because opening my email accounts - and yes I have several but I don't really know why I need them all save for my professional and personal accounts - became a daily chore of swiping left to delete the deluge of eNewsletters that had landed early in the morning. After clearing out the rubbish I'm left with what I think I want to read. Alas, something needing my immediate attention comes along and I move on to deal with that rather than actually read my emails. My engagement with by inbox became a culling exercise. If I didn't have to ritualistically delete all the crap that had accumulated in the space of 24 hours / 7 days, I would have the time to actually read the things I want to read.

The obvious way to declutter the inbox and save time is to unsubscribe from eNewsletters that are not read. By unsubscribing from eNewsletters that I identified as those that just won't ever be read I freed up space in in my mind, reduced distractions, and became better at focussing on the messages that matter to me. I also found that avoided missing important emails that used to get buried under the pile of unread newsletters - oh the irony!

Thanks to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations here in the UK all marketing messages, including emails, must provide a clear and accessible option for recipients to unsubscribe. Therefore, in theory at least, managing subscriptions to eNewsletters is easy and simple. More specifically, the Apple mail app now has a useful function where it recognises that the email you're reading is one that has arrived in the inbox from a mailing list, it brings this fact to your attention and displays a clear banner at the top of the email with an accessible unsubscribe button.

I recently allowed my inbox to fill up for a week. Some eNewsletters arrive daily, some weekly, others monthly. I found that after a week I had received most eNewsletters that I had subscribed to. I went through them one by one and unsubscribed from the lists I no longer wanted to be part of.

I found in that moment there's nothing like the feeling of freedom that comes from hitting the unsubscribe button on dozens of annoying newsletters - the ones that clutter the inbox with useless offers, boring updates and desperate pleas for attention. The ones that made me feel guilty for not reading them, or worse, tricked me into opening them with clickbait subject lines only to disappoint. The ones that I signed up for in a moment of weakness, or because they promised a free ebook - those are the ones I found myself most likely to engage with - or a discount code.

I realised that I had finally taken control of a small slice of my digital life by purging my email of unwanted noise. Go for it and take back control!

Now that I have been able to spend some deep focus time on reading the eNewsletters that matter to me, I thought I would share a list of some eNewsletters that I would recommend to other like minded folk:

• The Literary Hub

• Big Think, by Stephen Johnson

• Cal Newport's eNewsletter

• Stage+

• Deutsche Grammophon

• Areopagus, by the Cultural Tutor

• Working It, by Isabel Berwick at the Financial Times

Happy reading! And, don't unsubscribe from this blog...