So I spent most of yesterday in Clean Email working on getting a handle on my inbox. To say it was boring is an understatement. However, two days ago, I had 103,000 emails littering my inbox. I now have 16,000. And with it that much lower than before, I could adjust the task on my to-do list so that I work on it a little each day rather than focus on the tedious project all at once. Knowing that it's dropped that much makes it seem less daunting to manage, and I can break it down to manage in portions. I'm setting myself a timer of an hour per day in the program, organizing, so that my day isn't eaten by getting it under control again. It's the sort of tedious task where time just slips away. I honestly expected myself to unsubscribe from all the author emails because they're the biggest portion of what got me to where I am. Not that all of them spammed me, I'm down to ones that only sent around 30 or 40 emails over the course of a couple of years, which isn't all that bad though it could be better. There are just so many of them, probably because occasionally I'd go to the mass book funnel listings and all of them require a subscription. I haven't done that in a long time and I have to remember not to do it again. Also, I hate when people do that. Why not let me read your book first and decide if I like your work before forcing me to sign up for your mailing list? Note to self: a page full of free books looks enticing, but it's not worth all the email you'll drown in afterward.
Anyway, the four I've kept of author newsletters all had something extra and interesting. This one guy makes the majority of his email random and weird animal facts. His sales pitch is only about a quarter of his newsletter and the rest is just these strange bits of information. He could use some better formatting and tightening up of the newsletter. When I print to pdf it's a 16-page email, but the animal stuff is interesting. I'm mostly saving it for later in case I find it useful. Another chick writes dystopian and most of her newsletter emails have some sort of technology article with her insights on how this new current technology may affect the future. She finds some neat free online gadgets, too. Again, it's useful information and catered to her book topic that makes her newsletter not all sales pitch or yammering I don't care about. One woman is doing a series about tarot cards and writing, not sure how that's going to work, but I'm willing to read and find out because it's a unique idea. And the final guy puts in random historical research relating to his current work. One newsletter had stuff on the history of serial killers, another on vampires. Love the clean format of the last guy as well. The included research makes the four of them stand out as more than just a 20-page sales pitch that half these emails are. And they don't subscribe to the ideals that they must pile the email with giant cover images for their book, all their backlist, and all of their friend's books, because those newsletters just look busy and loud. I mean I'm just one reader so my thoughts aren't really the authority, but it's something to think about when compiling your author newsletter. It's something I'm thinking about when I someday need to write one. A clean, easy-to-follow format, concise length, clean layouts, interesting information outside of the sales pitch, and a once-monthly posting that doesn't exceed that.
I'm not done sorting as I said I'm still getting down through all the sane authors that didn't really spam my email, just got buried among the others. I'm down to people who sent me 30 or fewer emails. So I may find a couple more newsletters worth keeping. I scan the top few emails for topics of interest before deciding if I just want to unsubscribe, trash, and create a rule to send any one-offs there. So far, only a handful have even made me investigate further and most of those turned out to be duds.
On a bonus note, I'm finally done checking into Amazon for newsletter control. I got my 250 subscriptions down to 22. I adjusted my follow list to just authors I'm actually interested in following so my Alexas will stop giving me notifications about authors I've never heard of, but that I apparently entered a contest for a million years ago. I put it on my to-do list to unsubscribe from at least 5 every day and finally I can take the task off the to-do list altogether.
I finally learned how to make a free slideshow yesterday. Had to do it on my phone using an app called plainly enough, Slideshow. I went back and not only turned those 28 photos of my office into a slideshow so it wasn't the post that never ends, but I took photos of my laundry room, which I'll admit makes it look a bit like a crowded mess. Despite how it looks it's really well organized. The problem is I have limited space which got smaller when we had to start using the attic regularly. The door cuts into my laundry room area and I can't have anything blocking it. So everything got shoved further into the room. At the same time, the amount of laundry I had on a weekly basis doubled, so I had to switch to larger sorter baskets and add more baskets for folded laundry to the table. The hanging baskets are for the children, the baskets on the table are for the couples, and the ones under are for my sons. The rack with clothes has two days worth of laundry that's clean hanging there, I don't force the kids to get it sooner than the weekend unless I have so much I'm afraid it will pull down my rack. The washer was actually set up for today's load of colors. The stuff on the door will go into delicates bags because of narrow straps, plastic designs or just being delicate. I do those right before I start the load in case I have to double up more than one to a bag. Starting the load this morning will only take a minute or so with collecting the new dirty clothes from yesterday and adding those. The pictures don't do that room justice, because the organization set up functions so well considering the limited space. I'm actually really proud of my laundry room, despite how it might have appeared in pictures. Besides laundry rooms are about functionality, not about looking pretty in pictures.
Anyway, yesterday saw two members of my family down with some sort of bug, which sucked, but I still managed to do the maintenance on the cleaning projects I've gotten under control so I'm pretty happy about that. The laundry is on schedule; the bedroom was cleaned; the office was maintained of any new daily clutter. I am disappointed that I didn't move forward in the office, but I can't without help. The top two totes in that massive stack are photos to be scanned, they get stored under the open side of my desk with the under the bed totes in front of the filing cabinet on top of them so they're all in here when I finally get around to actually scanning photos. They're massively heavy totes and I have a bad back. I can't move them or the fire safe without potentially hurting my back again and it's really expensive to get my back under control if I hurt it again. With my husband sick, I can't move forward until he feels healthy enough to help again. Once I get the office entirely back together and out of massive totes, I plan to work on a plan to get the photos scanned and out of my office. I mean not quickly, but even if I scanned 10 photos a day, and either gave them to my kids or put them in mailers for people that might want them, eventually the totes would go away. I mean, it doesn't sound like much, but 10 photos a day for a year is 3,650 photos. I feel like that should eliminate at least one of the smaller totes. I need a plan that makes scanning a tiny, quick part of my day, but also makes it a habit. That said it doesn't need to go on the daily to-do list until the only totes left in or around my office are the ones containing extra cords, which are shoebox-size, or the ones containing photos. They're part of the to-do next list that's in the back of my mind. I mean, obviously, we never actually run out of things to do. It's about creating a routine that allows us to work slowly at the things we need to do and allows time to do the things we want to do.
Oh, so the other day when I was researching for the Expense template I came across a cool program called Zotero which keeps track of your research and creates a bibliography for you. I haven't played around with it much, but it seems like it would be super useful to incorporate with the template. The issue is that I don't quite know where or how. Maybe on the links page of the main template. I'm not sure how I want to use it, especially being an aspiring fiction writer, but just the idea of it, makes my inner nerd sigh with delight.
Personally, I have little to add to new developments. I spent the day organizing emails, trying to avoid public rooms. My public rooms are trashed because one of my children had a tantrum about being asked to do something when they didn't want to do it. Yes, I am aware they're supposed to be adults, but that is the rhythm of my life as of late. If a task involves them, it's going to be a constant battle to get it done. This is why my bedroom brings me joy to clean, and the laundry is a fight I dread. My cleaning and organizational plan has to work around them rather than through them because, specifically, one of them will tear it apart as fast as it occurs. I'm currently pretty miserable in my own home so I try to stay in rooms that are just my space as much as possible. And gaining back my office to make it my space again was a huge milestone for me. I'm wondering if her tantrums will stand in the way of my Christmas decorating later this month. I already lost out on Halloween decorating this year because of her mess. If we lose out on Christmas too, I might consider moving out even if it is supposed to be my house. This isn't how I want to live. And I can't really talk about it to anyone because they're always quick with the easy solution without thinking about the consequences of their suggestion on people other than the people who are causing the problems. The usual advice stresses me out more than the situation itself. It's not helpful at all and it drips with judgment about my parenting skills.
Anyway, that's all I've got to add for today. Hopefully, tomorrow brings more prosperous tidings.
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