Day 2937 – A Huge Email Time Suck Off My Mind

Posted on July 26, 2017 by 365 days of marriage

Hi, my name is Jennilyn and I’m an education junkie. I watch webinars, read articles, watch YouTube videos, read books, and sign up for a million email lists. When I set up the Journey With The G’s website, social media, and email, I started using that account to sign up for marketing emails. Now, I get dozens of emails each day that I just don’t have time to read. Yesterday, I finally had it. I’m all about minimalism in life, which I strive for, but fail often. Hi, my name is Jennilyn and I’m not perfect.

Now, if you didn’t know, Google is amazing in how they have their email set up. There is a way to route your email so it doesn’t clog up your inbox. I took the time to add a filter to EVERY email list I’m on. I took a few minutes with each to put them in sub categories, some with a little note, so when I DO have a minute to sit down and read some of the excellent content coming my way, I’m reminding myself WHY I signed up in the first place. If you have this problem too, let me walk you through what I did.

How to set up filters in Gmail
Copy the email address
Open a new window and open your settings, this makes it easier to add a bunch of filters for each email at once
Click on Filters and Blocked Addresses (at the top of the screen)
Click on Create a new filter at the top or in the middle of your screen (depends on if you have filters set up or not)
Paste the email address into the From box
Click on Create filter with this search
this is how I did mine, but there are lots of options to choose from. I wanted to file these emails right away.
Check Skip the Inbox (Archive it)
Check Apply the label:
Select New Label in the drop down
Check Nest label under:
Select to read (or whatever you call the label)
Type the company or person’s name as the new label
For example, if you signed up for the Journey With The G’s email list, you might say “Journey With The G’s (travel advice)”
Click Create
Check Also apply filter to XX matching conversations
Click Create filter

All the emails that fit that description will be moved!

Go back to your inbox window and refresh. Repeat the process until your inbox is empty. In the future, I will be adding filters when I join a list. If you’re like me, and go on a sign up binge, you totally forget why you signed up for someone’s list. I’m hoping adding this small switch in my education workflow will help me really learn and not be bogged down with 20-30 email notifications every day that I honestly won’t get to in that moment.

Now, this is what I see when I go into my gmail. 🙂

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Day 2931 – I Am SOOOOO Not Perfect – or – How Goofing Off For Five Hours Taught Me A Lot About Myself

Posted on July 20, 2017 by 365 days of marriage

I did a little experiment yesterday – I tracked every single minute of my day. Looking at my final numbers, I realized that I need to split a few categories. I had a fun category, and I logged time playing video games, or resting, or watching videos. But, here’s the awful part, I realized that I spent 5 hours of my day on fun. What a waste of my day! I didn’t want to, I REALLLLLLLY didn’t want to, but I told Bret. Oy, not easy. But here’s the cool thing, we ended up having a really great conversation about it last night, and into the morning (lol, going to be a tired day today!) It made me remember days after I had a ton to drink, and the embarrassment of telling Bret. It made me think I was just the pits. But, today, I can look at what I experienced yesterday, and be honest with myself. I can look at those numbers that are telling the truth, not glossing over what I think really happened, and make changes. When I feel the pull of video games and wanting to just goof off and have fun, I can remind myself how quickly it can add up.

One thing that came out of our conversation was about enjoying the journey, not always looking to the next thing, but appreciating where you are. Looking back on how far you’ve come is a really great exercise too. We found ourselves talking about how far we’ve come just in our diet. Oh man, it used to be BADDDDDDDD. Regularly having cases of soda in our fridge, hot dogs, and ramen noodles. Now that is the rarity and not the norm.

I’m not sure how long I’ll track my time to this degree, or how late in the day I’ll track. There is a level of wanting freedom of time, but then again, won’t it be that much more sweeter and “well deserved” if I know I’ve put in X hours “at the office” that I can spend X hours reading fiction and playing video games?

What about you, have you tracked your time like this? Did you find things out about yourself you didn’t want to admit?

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Day 2926 – A Week Of Less Social Media – How Is It Going?

Posted on July 15, 2017 by 365 days of marriage

It has been a little over a week of only checking social media twice a day, so, how’s it going? To be frank, it has been absolutely amazing. I have experienced more productivity in the last week than I have in ages. I know part of that is because of reading Deep Work*, but it is also a mental thing.

Here’s how I practically carry this out:
In the morning, before I log on to Facebook, I make a list of the things I need to do while I’m on there. From posting in my Facebook Group about planning a road trip, to checking On This Day, to posting on different accounts (ha ha, I have a lot). Once I finish that list, I log off. I don’t get back on until the afternoon, where I repeat the process. There have been a few exceptions to this, but they have been work related, and not “hmmmm, I wonder what’s going on…..did anyone post anything new?…..I’m bored….” I think just the act of making the list has started to train my brain – you don’t need this obsessive checking in your life. It’s ok. I will confess that yesterday was a little harder, and I checked a few more times. But that was mostly because I was exhausted and bored. lol, not a good combo for me!

I’ve found myself filling the time with reading. In the last week, I finished Deep Work, Keep Moving* by Dick Van Dyke (this is a FUN audiobook! I’m adding it to my recommends!), Matched (#1 in a YA dystopian novel), Jenny Colgan’s new book, and early this morning, Crossed (#2 in the YA dystopian novel series). I also knocked out a big project for Bret with pivotables and summaries. I truly feel like my mindset towards work has changed.

Have you cut out social or limited how much you get on?

* Affiliate link
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Day 2921 – Where We Were This Weekend – or – Such A Great Weekend With Friends!

Posted on July 10, 2017 by 365 days of marriage

We are blessed with friends all over this country. This weekend, some of our very dearest friends invited us over for a graduation party in New Jersey. We ended up staying the night (and having GREAT late night conversations). The next day, went headed into Philly to meet another friend. (Did anyone know it was Philly from the photo yesterday?) I love living so close to so many great places. I really need to visit Philly more. Ha ha, and New Jersey!

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Day 2917 – I’m Cutting Back On Social Media

Posted on July 6, 2017 by 365 days of marriage

I’m the queen of change, dreaming big, having huge goals, and not getting things completely done. Read this blog for a while, and you know I change how I do my to do list, track my tasks, etc., often…..quite often.

I’m currently reading Deep Work by Cal Newport. Here’s a funny fact about this – I’ve checked this book out of the library 3-5 times….and am only now making real headway. It’s due tomorrow, and I have about 120 pages left. With my normal habits and routine, I don’t think I could have finished it. But just from what I’ve read so far, I’ve made some major life and work habit changes. The biggest one just started yesterday (ha ha, so we’ll see how it goes!), and because of this change, I’ve logged more reading time.

My normal habit was to wake up, check my email, check Facebook notifications, check Facebook On This Day, check my work emails and notifications, and check games I’m playing….all before getting out of bed. So whatever I read on any of those place had the power to change my day, before it’s even begun. Throughout the day, check, check, check. Refresh and scroll. Oy vey! About the middle of the day yesterday, I was reading through Deep Work…it’s a bit of a priority this week, because I really want to finish it before it’s due….and I thought about my social media….and just a number of habits. I’ve started to keep a list of things that bring me joy, and things that bring me down. There are a lot of things on social media that have the power to trigger me (whether it’s nudity, or something talking about drinking, or just someone being negative), and I have taken some steps to try and protect myself from it, but I still slip. So in making this list, one big thing in the Trigger column was Facebook. So I’m like, dude, I need to change this. Here’s where my, hopefully, major mindshift came in.

Check social media twice a day.

I’m happy to report, I actually did pretty well yesterday….and this morning! I decided that it would best serve me if I made a list of the tasks I needed to do, drafted the text I needed to write, before I logged on. Friends, it worked! I think because I made the list, my brain was like, “ok – we’re turning off that desire….or at least, we understand what’s going on here.” I found myself wanting to check Facebook probably half a dozen times….in an hour. Pitiful. But my brain didn’t force the situation. it said, “ok, we’re trying this new thing now. We know why we’re doing this. I’ll still have some residual desires to check Facebook, but, ok ok ok (said in my brain’s best Stitch voice), we’ll try.”)

But I didn’t check again until my PM check in. I had my list ready to go, and I did what I needed to do, and got out…..almost. I had a post that was getting some interaction, so I needed to hop back on later that day. I only checked ONE more time in the evening….mostly out of curiosity. But there was so little immediate value. I just thought, welp, ok, I’ll check in the morning!

It’s 9:30, and I haven’t checked yet. On any other day, I would have checked 3x by now.

We’ll see how this goes….but I’m curious about you! Have you taken a social media fast? Have you tried to cut back on social media? How did it go? Let me know in the comments below.

And here’s a picture of Clearwater Beach….because if there’s anything that’s the antithesis of social media, it’s this beautiful beach. Ahhhhh, can I go back to Florida yet?

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365daysofmarriage

Simplicity in Marriage, Christianity, Travel, Business, Life

Category Archives: Business

Day 2937 – A Huge Email Time Suck Off My Mind

Day 2931 – I Am SOOOOO Not Perfect – or – How Goofing Off For Five Hours Taught Me A Lot About Myself

Day 2921 – Where We Were This Weekend – or – Such A Great Weekend With Friends!