
Tell HN: 500 unread mails, 2K unread articles, 5K unread posts – I am drowning - tobyntishpowzd
And that&#x27;s on top of the hundreds of tweets that I also &quot;bookmark&quot; in order to check later, on top of a couple of client projects I am currently working on, on top of my relationship that often feels neglected and on top of my life as an individual (= my friends, my family, books I want to read, movies I want to watch, music I want to listen to, places I want to go to, etc etc).<p>But to add some more context: I am a freelance developer (web, mostly), one of my clients is a company that has hired me to do data analytics for them in a field that&#x27;s quite new (and so there&#x27;s a lot of studying (about statistics) and research (about the field) from my side) and I really, <i>really</i>, like exploring, studying and learning new things in many areas.<p>So, over the years, I&#x27;ve been collecting pieces of knowledge or other general information that I found interesting. And now, I find myself just before the start of a new year (= reflectioning and resolutioning) and just before a commitment that will require some very effective time management for the next few months, thinking that I just can&#x27;t do it.<p>Now, to &quot;do it&quot; means to take action over all of these ~7.5K items. With very simple mathematics, if each item requires an action of ~5&#x27; each (this number is quite off but I am using it just to make more sense), I need something like ~26 days of doing nothing else other than &quot;actioning&quot; on these items (or ~52 days if I split the day in two halves, etc etc). Not very possible.<p>And here I am, asking for thoughts, opinions, advice. How do I do it? I could just &quot;-f delete -all&quot; in my inbox, pocket and bookmarks folder but I just &quot;can&#x27;t&quot;. Have any of you been in any similar positions? How did you deal with it? Is it some sort of standard &quot;digital hoarding&quot; situation? Is there something deeper? Should I seek for professional help, maybe?
======
todd3834
Just stop. None of it is that important at all. Want to know more about a
subject? Buy a book. Unsubscribe from all of your automated email. Stop
bookmarking things. Live in the moment and free yourself from all of that
anxiety.

Social media and blog posts should be passive entertainment. You aren’t going
to miss out on anything. You will accomplish more by letting it go.

You can do it! Just stop.

~~~
dorchadas
Agreed completely. Buying a book is the best way to really learn more about a
subject, and saves me from the binge-bookmarking. I've also made it a habit to
clear out my bookmarks at least once a year, based on if I've visited the site
or not, and if I still have any desire to read/use what I bookmarked. I've
also started making it a habit to try and keep my email as decluttered as
possible. All-in-all, it's really helped me mentally and actually made me more
able to stay focused on those things I really do want to learn enough to
invest time into (currently Abstract Algebra, at the moment).

~~~
swiley
Part of me feels bad that this sort of thing doesn't freak me out, that I'm
not bothered accumulating things like bookmarks, unread emails, and files.
Maybe that I'm comfortable living with so much noise is why I go through
periods where I don't get anything done.

~~~
dorchadas
It doesn't freak me out, per se, but it definitely _distracts_ me, as I do
feel I should go back and look through them. That said, I've gotten much more
done since adopting this habit, even if Reddit kills me time a lot nowadays.

------
ColinWright
I was in a similar situation last year. So I put everything in a subdirectory,
pushing bookmarks, _etc,_ into an email-like structure. Then I wrote a script
to count how many things there were to deal with, and chose an arbitrary
deadline of Nov 30, 2019.

I had nearly 5000 items.

That told me how many things I had to deal with per day, and more importantly,
for each day, it told me my target for how many there should be remaining, and
how many did actually remain.

I then wrote a script that listed the oldest 5, the most recent 5, and 5
chosen at random. Every day I ran that script and without fail dealt with
those items. The mantra was:

* Delete;

* Defer;

* Delegate;

* Deal with.

"Defer" doesn't simply mean "put off" \- it means that it is waiting for
something before it can be done, so it goes in a special "pending" queue.

Then I also processed items that let me hit my numbers. Some were easy and I
could far enough ahead of the game to let me take a day off, but mostly I just
ran my "Choose 3x5" script again.

There were days when I slipped, and days when I got further ahead, but by
November 1st I was down to under 200 items to deal with. And I've stayed at
that, but now it's churn.

The secret, I found, was to have destinations for everything. Look at one of
your bookmarks - why are you saving it? Where should it go? What should you do
with it? Does it fit in an existing project? Do you need to create a new
project? Should you simply file it for recall later when you need it?

* Does it require action?

* Should it simply be filed?

In my case, things built up because I didn't really know what to do with the
thing I was looking at, so it went in the "Queued" pile and festered.

Deal with 10 things. Have destinations for them all.

Then you've made a start.

~~~
Fnoord
Nice, I like the 4 D's.

With regards to bookmarks.

* Websites you regularly read can stay as pinned tabs. If that costs too much RAM, bookmark them.

* Websites you read irregularly, can be put in bookmarks.

* Websites you'd only read once can be put in some kind of logging application such as an RSS reader, OneTab, etc.

I also believe something like Monica [1] can help with some issues. For
example, say you're saving up items to buy as a present for your beloved one.
With Monica, you could just link these in the CRM to the specific person,
organized, and you also get to see what they got from you in other events. In
that sense, I suppose "Deal with" is rather broad.

[1] [https://github.com/monicahq/monica](https://github.com/monicahq/monica)

------
0kl
Everything you saved is “OBE” or “overcome by events.”

That email about a product launch you’ve forgotten? OBE

That article about how to write a node.js app in es5? OBE and probably a 404

That song you wanted to listen to but never got around to adding to a playlist
because you found better ones? OBE

Bookmarking, saving, noting, or whatever mechanism you use to save information
for later does not mean you will ever have the information. If it’s not
important enough to be actionable starting a certain date, dump it, and if it
becomes important, you will find it again.

~~~
mmastrac
Yes, this. It's about the freedom to forget. Important stuff bubbles up again
and again.

This is why I mark everything as read once every couple of years and just give
up. It's impossible to deal with everything.

~~~
daniel_iversen
Agree that this very wise to do. We are fooled into thinking everything is
important and that we are always “behind”. Being overwhelmed is generally not
that you have too much to do, but it is that you don’t know where to start.
Following on from your process of dealing with email, I have a bunch or
aggressive filters that mark emails as “not important” and “probably not
important” and then I have a google script that runs constantly and auto
archives old mails with those labels, because if I haven’t dealt with them yet
it’s not the end of the world and they don’t need to stick around - “OBE”!

------
baby
I've been in a similar path and, while I'm still not out of it, here are some
of the things I've learned:

* It is OK not to read everything. It is OK to let go of old emails and tasks and articles that you've bookmarked a long time ago. They will resurface at some point when you'll need them.

* You need to understand that your motivation to read something new like a new paper, or a new blogpost, fades away pretty quickly. Next time you're about to bookmark something interesting, stop and read the damn thing. Waste some of your precious time to read it.

* Take a break, take a holiday, book a hotel somewhere alone and go through all your emails and bookmarked items. Do some reading, do some cleaning. Do what you have to do to reduce this infinite stack of information.

~~~
Fnoord
I can recommend using this flowchart "How to Get Motivated: A Guide for
Defeating Procrastination" [1]. Consider putting it on your background on your
computer.

> You need to understand that your motivation to read something new, like a
> new paper, or a new blogpost, fades away pretty quickly. Whatever way you
> use to obtain new things to bookmark, next time you're about to bookmark
> something interesting stop, and read the damn thing. Waste some of your
> precious time to read it.

Actually, I found out that if you procrastinate reading material, and you
still want to read it in the near future (e.g. within a few months) it is
probably worth reading it, and you should give it a whirl.

It is also OK to procrastinate with some material. For example, I still want
to read Cryptonomicon, but I am intimidated by its size. However, good fiction
ages well. I assume it is still a blast if I read it in 2025. So I don't feel
a need for haste. I also consider fiction akin to gaming on a computer
(pleasure is not useless, but can only be applied within leisure time),
whereas non-fiction ages less good, and can be easier applied wrt your
profession or life.

I find e-mail quite easy to deal with. I read it, process it (deal with it),
and delete it (move it to trash). If I cannot deal with it right away, I don't
delete it, but once in a while I go through my e-mails to get rid of such. If
it is important (ie. important deadline), I star it. Approx once a year, I
clean my mailbox, and make new folders for the new year.

As for news, a good newsreader with RSS which syncs between your devices yet
respects your privacy is what I recommend. Don't follow too many websites, and
make sure you differentiate between work(-related) and pleasure. Don't bother
to follow all your websites. It is OK to miss news, comics, etc. Likewise,
using Firefox on mobile and desktop allows to sync between the 2. I usually
send my browser tabs from mobile to my laptop which is much more easy to
interface with (IMO, YMMV, I'm from the previous century).

Also, I like to combine cleaning my stuff with other tasks. For example, you
can do the dishes while listening to a podcast, or you can watch a documentary
which does not interest you completely with something like reading the news.
You cannot multitask, but you can change focus when it is interesting to you.
This way, you can get more things done.

One thing I did learn, is that I should prioritize time with my daughter. I
learned it the hard way (tho she's only 2 y.o.), and I guess if it doesn't
occur to you, you can only learn it that way. Time with my daughter is the
most valuable because she goes through her young life relatively quick, so if
I want to experience these changes including the fun parts, then I have to
spend time with her. Even if it is sometimes incredibly (mind-numbing) boring,
there's no ups without such, and it isn't so much about me; it is about her,
for her these experiences are interesting, and I need to remind myself about
that.

[1]
[https://alexvermeer.com/getmotivated/](https://alexvermeer.com/getmotivated/)

~~~
veggieburglar
All I have to say is don’t wait, read Cryptonomicon now!

------
rubyn00bie
Stop stressing, mate. Since just not giving a fuck doesn't seem like quite an
option for you, I'd do this (and have done this).

1\. Go through, spend maybe 45 minutes (15-30 would be better) collecting
specific things that are relevant to "now," out of those buckets. Forgot an
entire category of thing? Too bad, it isn't that important _now_.

2\. Then put everything else not collected, (don't start going through the
shit again) into a a tarball (or whatever archive format you want).

3\. Put that tarball onto a USB drive (or a couple for piece of mind), untar
it once to make sure it works right so you feel "secure."

4\. Then, and this is the important part, DELETE EVERYTHING you collected in
the tarball (delete emails, bookmarks, erry' thing).

The noise and weight of just seeing it all there can make everything seem
insurmountable. In fact, the noise will constantly get in the way of what is
important, thereby putting more between you and whats important, causing even
more noise until the loop spirals to where you are now.

You'll feel like a new person afterwards, within a day or two you'll probably
be more productive and less stressed out than you have been in weeks. The
reason being, is most of (if not all of at this point for ya) that electronic
weight is expectations no one remembers or wants filled.

And don't forget the peace of mind from having all those forgotten
expectations safely tucked away on a thumb drive... just in case.

Right now all this baggage is only preventing you from improving your work,
improving your relationships, and improving your life.

Good luck, friend.

P.S. Its fun to go back through the drives years later when you re-discover
them (you'll likely never use the drive after a week or two) and think "holy
shit, I cannot even remember why I gave a fuck about any of this" as well as
salvage a few forgotten gems.

~~~
mikeymz
Not giving a fuck is the healthy choice

~~~
rubyn00bie
+1 but sometimes it's hard to realize that (the healthy choice), the steps I
outlined will at least get one started in that direction. After enough times
(for me it was like 1.5) of doing the aforementioned, I was rid of the burden.

I deactivated my Facebook like seven years ago (? maybe more), with the intent
of being able to "reactivate" it. But, I haven't, and have no urge to...
turning it off was like a breath of fresh air. It let me know just how surface
level all our interactions are on things like Facebook. Reading about friends
or people you care about, almost anonymously or as a voyeur, without
interacting except for the occasional "like" or "me too, dawg" doesn't make
for good relationships. It makes for a (truthfully, shit) facsimile of
good/healthy relationships. When I see someone now I haven't seen in a long
time, there are things to talk about. I can express genuine heartfelt interest
in them and their lives. If I'd been using Facebook to get sideline views into
their lives I'd have my own bullshit expectations (or others) cast on to that
relationship... and for what? Literally, fucking nothing but anxiety.

Don't get me wrong in 2019 it's not so great not having a Facebook as I do
miss quite a few events, but _hey_ at least when I'm there, I'm actually
there.

Achievement Unlocked: Not Giving a Fuck Level ∞!

------
znpy
Flag them all as read and move on. Skim the emails.

If your life has moved forward without reading them then probably you can do
just fine without them.

Take 10-15 minutes to review your subscription, there's probably things from
which you can unsubscribe. Maybe things you're not interested in anymore or
things that looked interesting but not enough to follow through.

At the end of the day, meh.

Information overload is a thing, be aware of it.

------
sogen
I lost _all_ my bookmarks, which I had collected through the years. Realized
it didn't affect me at all.

Some tips in general:

1.- Just realize you'll never have enough time for ALL the movies, books,
bookmarks. Internet content is infinite.

2.- You need to be selective.

3.- More important: narrow down your interests.

4.- btw there's some apps to help with focusing, Focus is one of them, another
is SelfControl (FOSS), Freedom, Cold Turkey, etc

5.- Do a cleanup of clutter every six months.

~~~
baby
You probably felt relieved

~~~
sogen
Yes! oddly enough, I felt relieved, a weight lifted from my shoulders

------
CraigRood
Some decent advice so far, few different approaches. For myself I have 20k
unread emails. I don't care. I've already taken a pass on the From, Subject
and first line or so. Don't flag an email as a to-do unless you are actually
committed to doing it, or you need to do it. Let everything else fall out of
the bottom (so you can still search and filter up to a point)

With bookmarks, I would go against others here and say continue bookmarking
anything and everything you think is worth a follow-up in the future, but also
create a second list of "Bookmarks I must action", with the understanding that
you are again, committing time in the future to ensure this gets completed.

Mediums such as films, music and TV, I try and set a realistic limit on how
many items I have it my list before I simply purge the oldest items. If I was
serious about them, I would have completed them already.

Just be honest, realistic, and plan.

------
bransonf
Sounds like a clinical case of memory hoarding.

From: [https://ocdla.com/memory-hoarding-obsessive-compulsive-
disor...](https://ocdla.com/memory-hoarding-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-
ocd-1964)

> Memory hoarding is a mental compulsion to over-attend to the details of an
> event, person, or object in an attempt to mentally store it for safekeeping.
> This is generally done under the belief that the event, person, or object
> carries a special significance and will be important to recall exactly as-is
> at a later date. The memory serves the same function for the mental hoarder
> that the old newspaper serves for the physical hoarder.

I’ll admit too that I have had thousands of unread emails and tens of
thousands of bookmarks.

You have to come to realize that it’s not all that important. And even if you
can’t, there’s one way to start.

You fear that you’ll lose the data, that it’s important. So, save it all.
Archive every single one of those emails, and export those bookmarks. Put them
in a folder of their own and make a backup if you really care. Start fresh
with a clean inbox and bookmarks folder.

If you were right, and you actually ever need the data it’s still there. But
the more likely scenario is that you won’t, or it will be easier to just
google the damn thing again. This is how you may begin to realize the behavior
is irrational. It’s how I did.

------
agumonkey
Just went down from 1000 tabs to 750. You are not alone.

But nowadays, I try to use money as a filter. If a link has a clear benefit
for the job, read it. Otherwise discard.

~~~
KozmoNau7
Just close them. Close all of them, you don't need them.

If you need a specific page available for reference purposes, bookmark it.

Tabs are volatile and the "restore last session" functionality in modern
browsers is imperfect.

~~~
agumonkey
Oh I think I battle tested firefox session restore. I can even say that after
1000 tabs, UI lags tangibly (not blaming mozilla for this of course).

Honestly 1000 tabs wouldn't much of an issue if I had some SQL-like way to
filter / group tabs to bookmark them rapidly in bunches.

~~~
KozmoNau7
I'm genuinely curious as to how you keep track of hundreds of tabs, apparently
without tree-style tabs or similar extensions?

Why not just bookmark them in folders once and for all?

------
hinkley
This spring I sat down with my laptop and a new show to binge watch, and
started looking at my inbox. Every time I found a new update from some mailing
list I'd find the unsubscribe link, then search by some keywords and bulk
delete them (places that sent email receipts are a bit trickier that way, but
it's doable). Maybe 90 seconds per mailing list. Tedious, hence the TV.

The most obvious mailing lists removed a significant fraction of all of my
emails. The long tail was trouble. When I'd done all I could stand, I went
event-driven. Some infrequent spam would show up and I'd deal with it then.
Now I'm dealing with a couple a week.

Most of my email is still 'spam' that I haven't brought myself to unsubscribe
from yet. I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I may be there.

But I'm already at the point where if someone is trying to get ahold of me by
email it works again, and that wasn't true for quite a long time.

~~~
girzel
One of the nice things about a fully-featured email filter (I'm using sieve on
my own Dovecot installation but you wouldn't have to go that far) is making
your own "bulk" mailbox. I have a sieve rule that's got maybe ten "or"
conditionals in it, and does a darn good job of picking out mailing list/bulk
emails and shunting them to their own box. I don't mind signing up for
newsletters or letting merchants mail me so much, because I know those
messages are all going to their own special home. I have an older-than-three-
months autodelete on the mailbox, and manually move anything I want to keep
(receipts, etc) into a "bulk-keep" mailbox, and that's it. Takes me seconds to
scan each day, and doesn't pollute my inbox.

------
karmakaze
Lose the FOMO, mark all as read.

~~~
pouta
I recommend this approach as the emergency nuke. As long as you commit to keep
inbox zero afterwards.

~~~
SkyPuncher
I use the exact opposite approach.

My inbox is simply a message log. If I read something, I read something. If I
don't, I don't. The number of unread will forever grow.

Things that need non-immediate follow up get snoozed.

~~~
karmakaze
Actually I do a hybrid of this--I archive all the messages I don't plan to
read without bothering to mark as read. The only point in doing so is to gauge
my incoming spam rate which I manage with unsubscribes, mark as spam, and
rules.

------
seiko988
A key insight is that knowledge loses value over time. An article a few years
old might be a tip to buy a stock, a prediction of the outcome of an election
or a technology stack that has since been superseded.

------
bravoetch
Delete all those references. Then just read things instead of bookmarking them
for later. If you don't have time, what makes you think time will magically be
available later?

------
KozmoNau7
I know exactly how you feel, I've had huge unread inboxes, plenty of articles
to read, albums to listen to, DIY and other projects to do/finish, just
generally a ton of stuff on an unmanageable to-do list. Not to mention the
physical parts of those aforementioned things piling up.

The best thing that happened to me was that my girlfriend agreed to move in
with me. That gave me a clear deadline for cleaning out and cleaning up the
physical part of the mess, and really forced me to reevaluate which things to
keep around and which to just scrap outright. When you have to condense two
apartments into one, you have to be smart about which things you allow to take
up space.

I took this mentality to my non-physical mess as well, unsubscribed from all
mailing lists and took a hatchet to my open tabs, bookmarks and various read-
later lists.

Nowadays I try to read or listen to or generally check out stuff ASAP instead
of putting it off. For things like books, I keep a very short strictly curated
list of authors/books that I would like to read next, I try to keep it to
around 5 items at any given time.

I have ADD traits, and keeping myself from creating unmanageable to-do lists
really helps me with that.

------
uberman
How many of the emails are notifications of content or other spam? Get rid of
them. Stop any and all social spam. Now deal with the actual important email
such as correspondence from clients. As for the other junk the unread articles
and posts.. mark them read or delete the notices and move on. If you find
yourself with free time you can go hunting for interest but this stuff should
never control your life

~~~
noahtallen
I really enjoy unroll.me because it allowed me to easily unsubscribe from the
thousands of junk emails making it into my inbox. If I want to see some
things, they are added to my “rollup” which is delivered daily. Turns out, I
rarely read it. Nearly all of these social media notifications and mailing
lists are completely worthless. How often has subscribing to a blog that is
sometimes interesting actually helped you?

I still want to read and learn and to be in the know. So I’m on the lookout
for a better way to surface things I care about. Maybe 5-10 things a day. For
now hacker news seems to be working the best, but it’d be nice to have
something a bit more personal without an infinite feed.

~~~
mmerlin
"your emails have been scanned and sold to third parties"

[https://www.howtogeek.com/304373/unrollme-is-selling-your-
in...](https://www.howtogeek.com/304373/unrollme-is-selling-your-information-
heres-an-alternative/)

------
joveian
At least for me, there are two related issues: spending time in preparation
for something I tell myself I should do but actually don't and the stuff I am
saving in preparation for things I don't actually do overwhelming the stuff
that I would actually use if I could find it easily. You can still bookmark
and save emails just do so in a way that takes very little time and doesn't
get in the way of what you actually use.

With email is when it gets to be too much I go through and deal with
everything I must reply to right now and save all the rest in a new folder
that I can refer to if necessary (this occasionally happens). I started doing
this by telling myself that I would look through them if I got the chance, but
that never happens.

With bookmarking and such the trick is to avoid letting the things you are
most likely never actually going to look at get in the way of accessing the
things you have read and want to be able to refer to quickly or are likely to
be of particular use to refer to in the not too distant future (e.g. something
related to a particular project you are working on). If you think organizing
in a particular way might be helpful, try it but if you don't actually use it
go to the lowest effort option (e.g. add an unsorted bookmark). Sometimes
unsorted bookmarks can still be useful to find an article you remember looking
at, although I often find it isn't possible in a reasonable amount of time so
I've found the trick if I remember seeing an article I now want to read is to
try a few quick searches of bookmarks but stop fairly quickly if I don't find
it.

I also find it helpful to completely stop reading HN (and other stuff that
isn't immediately useful) for a month or two now and then to get a better feel
for how much time it takes and what I get out of it.

------
themodelplumber
One way of looking at this: If you could only take action on those items, you
wouldn't have to improvise; you'd be better prepared and educated for the
future.

Yet this ability to improvise and dive into the unknown got you to where you
are today. It got you a leg up and advanced your career.

And regarding the interest, that's also a factor worth considering: Somehow
the feeling of interest quickly gives way to a fearful feeling of imminent
loss of contact with knowledge which may be necessary in the future. However
IMO given your skill in the tech area in general, this question of necessity
should probably be itself held in question.

One alternative path is to build the capacity to create your own knowledge as
needed, through tactical, specific problem-event-based analysis. Doing so
narrows the time scope and the applicable scope of available outside
information. In effect it narrows your filters to both limit your exposure to
impossible swaths of "maybe I'll need it" information and also increase your
leverage over the specific problem in question.

If you want any more help with this feel free to drop me a line.

------
johnwalkr
I used to organize such things into a big folder structure by topic. Since it
was mental effort to keep organized, I rarely did it and sometimes had tens of
thousands of unsorted emails. Realized that if I needed to find something, I
could always find it by searching, but sometimes an important mail fell
through the cracks.

Now I stay on top of mail by sorting into “todo”, “follow up” and “archive”. I
go through the first 2 every few days and archive anything I don’t care about,
and move things from follow up to todo if I feel I need to do some action.
Typically this means sending a reminder to someone.

You can probably sort through 500 emails in a couple hours. If that’s too
daunting, just do 100 per day.

I disagree with others that say to delete your bookmarks. I would just archive
them so you can find them by searching later if something triggers your
memory. But from now you can save bookmarks in 2 folders. If something is
interesting, save it in your archive and forget about if. If something is
actionable or time sensitive, save it in a “todo”, “to read” folder or open
tab.

------
rapper
I do not allow myself on the Internet after 5 pm unless it has to do with
studying, work or shopping. If my mind wants to wander around and browse the
Internet, it's free to explore the currently open tabs (that were opened and
abandoned before 5 pm) and/or bookmarks. This helps me keep the deluge of info
at bay and clear out the old tasks/bookmarks.

~~~
baby
I actually bought a smart plug that can shut off my internet between 8pm and
6am the next day. I'll try it when I get back home after the holidays.

It's a bit of a hassle to setup because I control it by connecting to the WiFi
which needs to be unplugged when I plug this smart plug :D but I couldn't find
a bluetooth one on amazon (if someone has one please share)

~~~
netsharc
I've seen this analog one in Germany: [http://www.massive-
grow.de/images/stories/virtuemart/product...](http://www.massive-
grow.de/images/stories/virtuemart/product/bild_551_1.png) , but it ticks as
some part rotates.

~~~
Symbiote
Digital versions are also available. The only sound is when the relay
activates or deactivates the power.

It's called a timer switch in English.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_switch](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_switch)

------
BuckRogers
Delete all of it and only read things immediately, else don't read it at all.
I try to enforce this rule on myself. The only thing I break this rule on is
marking videos on Youtube as 'watch later' since it's mostly background noise
when I put on videos. I'm even starting to move away from that and go to FIFO
consumption there as well.

I'd echo the sentiment that if you're seriously interested in any topic,
pickup a book. I have another life rule for myself- don't form a strong
opinion on anything until reading at least 2 books on the subject. I also
don't take anyone's opinion seriously without discovering they've read at
least 2 books on it. It's just vetted, edited written material that's high
quality.

Try it next time someone mentions global warming, see if they care enough
about it to funnel those emotions into actually looking into it, in any
meaningful way like reading a book..

------
quickthrower2
I’d consider seeing a psychologist. There is nothing wrong with that at all -
no different to needing a physical therapist or dentist in my book.

In the short term I recommend setting realistic learning goals, which are
rooted in the direction you want to take your hobbies/work, and then discover
the places to find that information. Spending 100 hrs learning one thing is
more effective than learning 100 different things. And that means deleting the
bookmarks, or at least export them them to a csv and stick em in a repo for
future searches. But no need to read em all.

The inbox- I don’t know how important the emails are but go through them all
and aggressively archive anything you don’t need to follow up on. This might
require several passes where you get more strict on what you keep each time.

Don’t be a slave to your past self thinking you need to read everything. You
can’t read the whole web and there is no need to try!

------
maerF0x0
This is exactly the reason why I signed up for a pocket account and the
browser extension.

Whenever I find myself distracted or anxious about reading an article or
losing an important piece of information. I bookmark it in pocket and move on.
It makes me feel better (less anxiety) and 99% of the time I dont go back and
read it...

------
AnimalMuppet
It is humanly impossible to read everything that's interesting, relevant,
and/or important. That's OK. _Let yourself be human._ Stop. Throw away the 2K
articles and the 5K unread posts. Don't even try to sort them. Just give
yourself permission to not read them, and throw them away.

------
muzani
I'll give you an actual plan.

Step 1: Clear your inbox to one page

Your inbox should be a to do list. Get it down to one page, all actionable.
Any newsletters you haven't read at this point, delete it. Yes, it's valuable.
But newsletters are a stream, not a chunk of gold you want to hoard. Whatever
they brought you, there will be more later, and often the same thing.

Use [http://unroll.me](http://unroll.me) and unsubscribe everything, except
the truly good ones.

What is good? Good isn't simply learning something. Good is _life changing_.
It doesn't mean getting a job that pays 20% more, or landing an extra
contract. It means something that becomes a "secret weapon".

If you have a to do list, clear/archive your inbox completely and move
remaining emails to your to do lists. You should have a set time to read an
email or respond.

Step 2: Clear out those tweets

Tweets are easy. You either read them now or you delete them now. Don't think
too much. Remember, it's a stream of useful information. Like clean water,
you'll have more later.

Step 3: Clean out those posts

Post are a bit harder than tweets. But it's the same concept. Skim then toss
them away. If they're life changing, you'll notice.

Step 4: Clean out the articles

Now this is the hard part. Articles take a bit more time to skim.

Keep in mind Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. This applies to
articles (especially dev.to, Medium, and all these other personal branding
blogs).

Out of those 2000 articles, cut it down to 200 non-crap ones. Don't read them
yet. Just skim. If you're above 200, keep cutting it down.

Then you read them. At this point you've become very good at skimming, so you
should get a good understanding of them quickly.

Good luck!

------
j1elo
I tend to something similar, in smaller scale. Right now my Firefox browser
has 67 open tabs in my phone, with links and tidbits of information that is
interesting or relevant for me, waiting for review. But I don't really worry
so much as before.

It used to be worse, with several hundredth tabs. I just lost them all one
day, to my astonishment, while testing the "clean private data" feature:
hadn't disabled the option to forget all open tabs. All were gone, and it
really was for the better. It felt like a "mind cleanup" \-- although at the
moment I felt very stupid :-)

You have been given good advice: just stop. At least for a while. Realize that
all that pending stuff is neither Important nor Urgent [1], and just let it
go.

[1]: Eisenhower Matrix and all that

------
peter_l_downs
Ignore all of them and move on with your life. Anything urgent enough you
already would have gotten to.

------
arkitaip
I just delete all todos (articles, news, tweets, etc) that are a few months
old and that I haven't engaged with. If it's important and good enough, I will
find the resource again. Most often, however, I have stopped caring and don't
even bother with a follow-up.

------
comboy
All other comments seem to be fixing the list, but the problem is not the
list, the problem is that it makes you anxious.

Few sentences from a stranger won't change you but you're clearly using
introspection so you'll be fine.

Just remember that you decided to post or do 100 other things than doing these
e-mails or items. Did something change? If you are choosing something else
over that stuff why do you think it's something that needs fixing?

If you truly believed that getting these things done is what you want, you
would have done them. So just debug the program of yourself. You think that
given some input (values, what you think is important) you should expect the
zero inbox output. Sometimes the program works fine, you're just assuming
different input.

------
rl3
As someone with nearly identical psychology and habits in this regard, my
advice is this:

Keep bookmarking and saving stuff, but tell yourself you'll process it later,
with the help of technology that doesn't exist yet.

Procrastination is your friend here, not the enemy. Technically it's not even
procrastination if you're deferring things on the basis of requiring better
tools. You're just scratching an OCD itch of sorts and there's nothing wrong
with that. I bookmark almost everything I come across that I find interesting,
and I _hate_ losing data in any form.

For me, life is endless streams of data I can't hope to keep up with. I just
cherry pick from streams either at my leisure or as is required of me.

------
lxe
Simple: keep things bookmarked and save things you find interesting but don't
notify yourself that they are unread. If you so desire on your own time to go
through the things you saved, you can do that -- it's like your own personally
curated reddit!

------
im3w1l
The first thing to do is to get over the sunk cost fallacy. _I 've spent the
time bookmarking all these articles, so now I better read them._ No. You don't
need to.

Realize what you have. A collection of things you thought might be useful some
day. Consider an encyclopedia. No one reads through an encyclopedia cover-to-
cover. That's perfectly fine. You pick something out to read when you need it.
Most entries go unread, existing as mere possibilities. You might be able to
use your bookmarks like this.

For your emails, figure out which of them need an action on your part
(probably the most recent ones). Everything else goes into the archive so that
you can find them when searching in the future.

------
arthurofbabylon
I sacrificed the few hours necessary to get to inbox zero - it was worth it.
500 unread emails really isn’t that much.

Articles + posts: I love the backlog. If something isn’t relevant when I go to
read it, I’ll probably just trash it. And so the backlog serves as a relevance
filter. The best articles I read are “relevant” in a timeless way, so checking
to see if the article is still of interest in a different context ensures that
what I read is indeed awesome.

Once you’re caught up, try using www.minimal.app for reading lists, writings,
etc. The Note Lifetime ensures that the important things get taken care of,
while all else is let go. (I am building it.)

------
Spooky23
Book time for research, and purge any of those bookmarks, etc that you can’t
get to during those periods. If you don’t triage right away, the context is
gone anyway and those resources aren’t useful.

For the mail, just let it go. I have 40k unread emails that cannot be deleted
for reasons... anything unsorted after 90 days should get dumped. Make a vip
list and commit to reading those, the rest are junk and should just be purged
or dumped somewhere.

Make a rule for yourself that you can follow and use that to liberate yourself
from the anxiety of dealing with this big pile.

------
kfrzcode
Arbitrary numbers. Delete all the messages and posts and free your mind. There
is much much much more to life than what you can find behind a screen.

If your notifications are hitting more than helping your mental health it's
time to take a break.

Seriously, go outside and don't look at your devices for a week or two. It's
not as hard as some might expect.

Then when you return, don't feel obligated to read all the things, be precise
and deliberate in your actions and consumption.

You got this. It's just pixels and bits, we are the dust in the wind that
matter.

------
zepto
Delete them all now. Either you will die, or you will be free of them.

------
seventhtiger
A human life is not a permanent installation. It is more like a mandala.
Constantly in the state of being made until it is complete, and then it is
discarded.

Your life is a mandala. None of it will remain. Don't hoard physical things
and don't hoard information. Let it pass through you. Delete the entire lists.

Believe in the stickiness of important things. After you delete the lists try
to remember items from it. Read whatever you remember right away.

In the end there's really nothing you _have_ to do, even breathe.

------
MoZeus
You have _only_ 500 unread email? I need to know your secret.

------
mkbkn
I was in a similar situation before. Here's what I did -

Deleted FB & Twitter accounts. Unsubscribed from all emails. "Cleaned" my
desktop (on laptop). Tagged other digital items like those saved in Pocket.
Now whenever I'm in a commute or have a free item, I go through each save and
ask myself - "Do I really need this item? Does it earn me any money? Is it
worth my time?" If not, I just delete it then and there and move on.

------
sharma_pradeep
Unpopular opinion: I have seen this happening frequently for all the
"freelancers" I know. They deal with multiple clients, multiple projects,
multiple categories of work.

Have you thought of organizing the way you're doing business? Probably focus
on more niche field. Cut down your clients, cut down your projects and focus
on fewer.

Remember 80/20 principle? Ask yourself what gives you the most output and then
remove everything else from your life?

------
gobr
I was you some years ago.

I decided to change.

I deleted EVERYTHING.

It was hard but my life is better now.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Hard how? Hard to bring yourself to do it, or hard because it caused
consequences when you did it?

~~~
ta999999171
If you're that worried, mass respond to every mail in inbox and anyone that's
human or any business that gives a shit will resend their msg the next day.

------
paulorlando
You'll really know if this content was useful by deleting it and seeing if
there's an impact later. Like others said, you can get it back, but I doubt
you'll see the need.

As a way to reduce the content you consume, give preference to what has lasted
more than 10 years already. You won't be as current, but much of the new stuff
isn't built to survive anyway.

------
aerovistae
This just inspired me to go clean-up my bookmarks. Only have a couple hundred,
but, still nice to throw out all the unneeded stuff.

------
tarsinge
I was there. For me the solution was: bought a Kindle, put 5 books in it (3
fiction, 2 non fiction), and forced myself to not open my laptop except for
(real) work for a few weeks. 0 web browsing. Never felt better. Really put
things into perspective, and to be at peace with missing out and instead
focusing.

------
OpenCoderX
Focus on the client projects until you complete enough work that you can
status them and let them know you are on vacation for a few days, use the
vacation to focus on the relationship. How many days required to get the
client projects to a point that they can spend a few days reviewing the
completed work?

------
shakkhar
Honestly, I prefer keeping things in queue for a while before reading them. A
lot of things seem vaguely important at the moment I bookmark / archive them.
By the time I circle back to those, most lose relevance. The ones that don't
lose relevance are the ones worth reading.

------
fullhd
Moving from FOMO (Fear of missing out) --> JOMO (Joy of missing out)

------
valand
Mails:

Filter by sender, pick the least valuable first. Move all to trash.
Unsubscribe to unimportant newsletter.

Knowledge:

Pick one, master it. Pick another one, master it. Do it one by one. Pick the
valuable one first.

------
buboard
humans are bad at planning the future, but very good with the present. read
something interesting immediately or forget about it. if you are willing to
postpone it , it's probably not important anyway. don't worry, the internet is
not going to go away. even though we believe we follow different bubbles, the
same articles are being circulated in all of them.

------
zubairq
My advice is to close the computer, shut off the phone, and buy a book. Not an
ebook, but a "physical" book and start reading

------
harrisonjackson
Delete all the emails that aren't from an actual person that you already know.
Free yourself to forget about and delete the rest.

------
itsmejeff
If it was important to your well-being you would have already addressed it.
Delete it all and start fresh. Or just stop altogether.

------
NicoJuicy
Bookmarks are just bookmarks, follow a course

------
dokem
Is this some sort of HN joke? Delete all that garbage and go do something,
literally anything, not involving a computer.

------
seba_dos1
Recently I have passed 33333 unread e-mails. I guess the time to mark them all
as read is approaching again :P

------
emodendroket
Say you don't do anything about it but just leave it alone. What's the worst
that could happen?

------
lazylizard
Tar gz everything into a new 10tb portable drive n imagine you will come back
to it later.

------
ljm
What makes you think you have to take action on the entirety of your backlog
of items?

------
alkonaut
Don’t bookmark things or save a reading list.

After that, your backlog should start shrinking.

------
fullhd
JOMO (Joy of missing out) > FOMO (Fear of missing out)

------
kingkawn
Not worth freakin about Do what you can That’s good

------
madhadron
I go through my bookmarks once a week. Generally after a week and in the
context of a whole list of shiny things, this particular shiny thing doesn't
seem quite so shiny. I find that I delete between 50% and 100% of this week's
bookmarks without doing more than reading the titles.

If they don't fall in that bucket, they either go into:

1\. a project or todo that is captured elsewhere, and it gets attached. 2\.
One of my text files in a "not now" folder, very roughly separated by major
themes (they have titles like "Technical details" for programming/CS stuff,
"Sciencey stuff", "Process/organization", "Parenting", and files for large
future projects that I am slowly accumulating towards like "One volume world
history" and "Alexandrine program for software").

3\. My read/review folder if I actually still want to read it. That folder I
review weekly as well. If it's not something I still really want to read, I
dump it into a subfolder called "archive" which is a guilt free trash can.

> Is it some sort of standard "digital hoarding" situation?

It's habits developed in scarcity failing when applied in glut. You probably
don't need professional help. You just need to accept that you are going to
trace a tiny path through the world of human knowledge. Once you accept that
you're not going to archive the world in your mind, you find that you need
different criteria. Look at your roles in life and goals and ask what
information will serve to advance them. I am a father. I wouldn't seek out
parenting books without that, as I don't find the information enriching, but
there is information I need for that role. I hold a job programming computers.
Details of my employer's internal tooling isn't something I would seek out
without reason, but to do my job I need it. I am a human being that needs to
take care of myself, and part of that is having positive, enriching things in
my world, and certain information feeds that, but there is no obligation to
assimilate the world in that. The information is allowed in to fit my needs, I
am not contorted to fit its needs.

At this point, if you have a big time commitment coming up, I would dump all
this stuff you have in a folder called "archive" and accept that you're not
going to look at it for a while. You can review it weekly by looking at the
folder "archive" (not its contents) and saying, "not this week" which will
give you freedom for another week.

In six months you may look at it and go, "Yeah, never." and delete it. By that
point most of what you would actually need in there you would have found again
anyway.

Likewise, this is a good time to cut off twitter and all the feeds that are
adding to this stack. That bookmark review I mentioned before is only for
three to ten items a week, generally, which I find slightly too high.

------
brylie
1) Unsubscribe.

2) Delete.

3) Repeat.

------
ta999999171
Get high and/or toasted and rm rf, B.

