Decluttering Your Digital Life
In today's edition, let's discuss digital overwhelm and it's impact on your health.

Good morning!
What was the first thing you did upon waking up this morning? Did you run to the restroom? Make breakfast? Snooze your alarm? Make your bed? Hop in the shower? Brush your teeth? I must have left out an option because I don’t feel like I’ve hit everything…
Chances are you checked your phone. And scrolled. And maybe you caught up with some texts. Some emails and some direct messages. If not, claps for you!
Let’s be honest: the impetus to check our phones immediately and get pulled into the day’s demands is not lost upon any of us, especially if you’re a dynamic person for whom multiple people’s business operations run through.
Part of this is just where we are in the digital age.
I wouldn’t be giving practical advice if I told you not to do this. Texting people matters. For many people, social media is essential to stay connected. Deleting apps isn’t always the best answer, easy as it may seem (it’s only a re-download away anyway, right?).
But one way to quiet the silent screams of notifications and digital overwhelm and the anxiety that comes with it is to look at your messages — your e-mail inbox (or inboxes), mainly — and undertake the highly arduous but underrated task that you probably have told yourself you’ll get around to.
Scroll down. Read the Fine Print. Unsubscribe.
Clear your inbox. Delete those promotional messages from that Christmas gift that you just bought. Detox your inbox from two or three self-help newsletters you subscribed to earlier this month (that you never read) because you wanted to ground yourself this new year. Wait a minute…except for this one. Keep this one.
Just do your eyeballs a solid and scan through all the bullshit e-mails that don’t serve you. Not only will it save you the hassle of combing through the unimportant unreads to find the unreads that matter, but you also won’t have to be one of those chronic under-readers who let their inbox bleed into the thousands.


What’s worse: much of your inbox overflow might not even be your fault. A 2021 report from The Manifest found that 23% of e-mail unsubscribes happen because the subscriber never subscribed.
The best way to clean your inbox is to get on your laptop, open your mailing system, and be ready for the endless tabs that come with unsubscribing. Whether it’s on your personal or work e-mail, the Cleveland Clinic explains why e-mail inbox anxiety differs from social media anxiety.
“It adds to the list of things you must be responsible for,” says Dr. Kia-Rai M. Prewitt. “For people who prefer text messages or social media, email represents one more way they have to communicate — and it might not be their preferred method of communication.”
Set Timers for Apps to Limit Screen Time
This one has been a game changer for me in how productive I am with the other aspects of my business that aren’t training people.
A 90-minute screen time limit per day for Instagram has allowed me to do things like:
Prospect for new clients on social media and via text messages
Write these newsletters
Create content for other platforms where potential clients may be
Enjoy time with my family and be present
Call my Mom 1-2x a week (a habit I’m especially proud I picked up)
Another benefit of limiting screen time is that you can find time for other non-productivity-related things.
That new hobby you wanted to pick up? Boom, you’ve got it because you’ve shaved 20 scrolling minutes off your day. New book? That’s 20+ pages you just read.
For those of you who are like me and must be chronically online for work, it may help to have more extended limits to your apps and pre-schedule content. I’ve automated almost all of my newsletters so that future editions are scheduled 2-3 days in advance (I wrote this on Saturday).
If your work requires you to be digitally attached often, that’s fine. But make sure the work you’re doing on any given app is reaping some rewards and is giving you time for other things that matter, the likes of which include…
Fitness (duh, fitness coach here)
Quality time with yourself or your significant other
Meditation, sitting in silence, or simply relaxing in a non-media-consuming way
Going for a walk (not dissimilar from fitness, but also not quite as painful as full-on exercise and equally beneficial)
Cooking meals (as opposed to ordering in!)
Meetups with friends
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