Building an email inbox I love
(First: I wanted the title to be “Building a life email inbox I love”, but I couldn’t put strikethrough in the title, so instead I’m explaining my cleverness here.)
I decided a few days ago that I wanted to be having more conversations with people. Online, in person, whatever, doesn’t matter. More connection, less isolation!
Then, I remembered that being on social media usually makes me miserable, which isn’t exactly a great setup for satisfying connection. And that I don’t actually usually particularly enjoy leaving my house. And that networking mixers are exhausting. And that dating apps feel wildly dehumanizing, even when they’ve been modified to commoditize friendship instead of love.
I felt like I’d rejected all of the possible ways to meet people to have conversations with, and retreated into the comfort of writing to my email list. I then had the realization that, if I wanted to be connecting with people through my email list, maybe others did, too! So, I spent an evening searching for email lists to join. Y’know, perhaps I could find 3-5 people to read thoughts from, and then maybe I could be part of a broader conversation happening on the internet between people creating Things they wanna send emails about.
I forgot, though, that “moderation” is not one of my strongest skills. I wasn’t counting at the time, but I just searched my email for “confirm your subscription” within the last week - and it appears that I signed up for no less than fifty email lists in the course of about three days. And let me tell you, if we’re measuring connectedness by “number of emails appearing in my inbox,” I’m sure more connected now than I was before that decision.
“Number of emails appearing in my inbox,” however, is a really poor metric for the thing I was trying to achieve. I want to feel like I’m part of a world with other human beings. To touch the reality of shared struggles, and the universal experience of uncertainty and messiness, but also of joy and delight and celebration. I want to feel like I belong to groups of people (of any size) who have each others’ back, are generous with one another, and are comfortable requesting and accepting generosity in return. I know this exists. I know these people exist. And I am choosing to believe that some of them will allow me to invite them into my email inbox. Some of the newsletters I subscribed to provide that experience for me, and I’m looking forward to discovering more about which ones.
And some of them…don’t.
My inbox is my space, and in order to protect it, and to cultivate this tiny slice of building a life that I love, I’m choosing to (at least for now) set the following intentions for myself. This type of practice is pretty common for me, when I encounter parts of my life that aren’t working for me - and I love the way it clarifies what I want and what I need, and gives me space to move gently toward it. I encourage you to find similar boundaries for your email, in whatever ways you’re able to.
I give myself permission to unsubscribe from any email list that:
Solicits a response to an email, and then treats it as a support ticket or responds in a way that makes it clear that they don’t have time for interacting with me as an individual, unique human.
Encourages me to operate from a sense of scarcity (for instance, “I’ll give you $400 off if you order in the next 3 days!”).
Results in me feeling worse about myself after reading (usually, but not always, accomplished through a transformational before and after story, where the “before” is painted in a substantially negative light, and where I can identify with the “before”).
Requires me to click links to get to meaningful content, rather than sharing something worthwhile in the email itself.
Doesn’t feel relevant, interesting, valuable, or delightful to me, specifically, even if I generally appreciate what they’re doing in the world.
Focuses their brand or packaging on things that I find uncomfortable to engage with (for instance, I found a newsletter that talked about business stuff with a bunch of food references - which might be full of amazing content, and will make me constantly uncomfortable, so it doesn’t need to be in my space)
As someone who sends emails to a list, I will:
Write about things I’m genuinely interested in having a conversation about.
Write about things to start conversations that I want to be happening, whether or not I’m involved in them.
Talk about things I still have room to learn about, without always needing to be the expert.
Respond to people who engage with the conversation I’m starting, whether the response is private (usually), or public (either with permission or responding in a more general way)
Approach my writing and my engagement in subsequent conversation with as much curiosity as I’m able to
Leave space for the conversations to be organic and fluid, understanding that working to constrain human interaction to fit within lines that are “relevant to my business” is mostly nonsensical when I’m in the business of being human, connecting with humans, and supporting people in building lives that they love.
Be thoughtful and attentive to balancing what I give and what I request, and open to feedback from my community about what they’d like to see me offering more of (and what they’re able to offer me) to keep the connection equitable
Take responsibility for my own boundaries, vigilantly protecting my integrity and my ability to engage generously with people, and guarding faithfully against resentment.
Show up being present, honest, and human, to the best of my ability.
As an email reader, I take responsibility for:
Interpreting any given email as valuable, relevant, interesting, and/or delightful for me, whenever possible. If this becomes consistently difficult with a given newsletter, I take responsibility for unsubscribing.
Setting aside judgment and criticism, in favor of curiosity and an intention to connect and learn.
Assuming that invitations and requests to reply to the email are genuine and applicable to me. If the invitation is to a conversation I’m interested in, I take responsibility for responding with honesty, appropriate risk-taking, and intention to connect with and learn alongside another human. I give myself permission to engage as if the conversation is only with me, and to see myself as a unique, valuable, interesting individual, not as a faceless data point in a sea of “audience members.”
Unsubscribing if I become unable to think of the newsletter author as a real, multidimensional human, or if it stops feeling safe to read the newsletter with my heart and mind open and acknowledging the full truth of my own human experience.
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If this was only a declaration of how I will engage with my email subscriptions, I could have scribbled it on a post-it note, stuck it on my laptop, and been done with it. There are plenty of similar commitments to myself that don’t even get that much, and are just a choice in the moment to take an action aligned to my values.
I’m sharing it as an example of how setting clear intentions, in parts of my life where it’s easy to take drudgery and discomfort for granted, and aligning those intentions with broader values and goals can make a difference. It’s one (relatable and concrete) example of a huge number of similar intentions and boundaries I set for myself, throughout my life, both consciously and subconsciously. By doing so, I create a world where I’m dancing between moments that I’m excited for, delighted by, and motivated towards - not always, but increasingly frequently - even when I have shit to get done.
You have better things to do with your energy than fighting with the environment you’re in. Apply for 1:1 coaching with me to cultivate circumstances you love, because the world needs your soul to be alive, vibrant, and nourished, even though you have a million other things to attend to.
