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Calmer inbox and Digital emotion regulation

Letter #71 • August 1st, 2023

→ Read on the web​

"How's your email inbox like?" — A couple of years ago, I asked on Twitter what was the first thing that came to people’s mind to describe their inbox. To nobody’s surprise, some replies were pretty grim: “a chore”, “chaos”, “clutter”, “overwhelming”, etc.

It’s baffling that we use email every single day, for years, and yet it’s still a half-intentional mess. In his book The Organized Mind, neuroscientist Daniel Levitin points it out as an example of “satisficing”, meaning it’s a strategy for decision-making that’s good enough: it may not be the most optimal way to manage our email, but it’s sufficiently satisfying that we maintain the status quo.

Email doesn’t have to be overwhelming or to stress you out. In today’s edition, you will find an article I wrote on how to make our email inbox calmer. You’ll also learn about digital emotion regulation, a great browser extension to stop wasting time on YouTube, and an inspiring prompt to reach your digital well-being goals.

Enjoy!

P.S.: this password game is very fun​

- Clo

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🌻 Bloom from the blog

​How to Make your Email Inbox Calmer​

Inboxes can be very personal places. I still have emails from 15 years ago. Some of them, I keep preciously, as memorabilia. Whether for love letters or correspondence with friends - and let’s be real, these aren’t mutually exclusive - as a teen, email was the only way I could be in touch at length for asynchronous conversations, defying SMS’s gravity: its 160-character limit.

In this article, we’ll look into how unexpectedly personal inboxes can be - I don’t often think of my email that way, and yet… We’ll also cover 8 super-practical ways to make your inbox calmer.

The perfect opportunity to make the most of summer and tidy our digital clutter ahead of September ✨

→ Read more​

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🌳 Rooted reads

​Why am I online? Research shows it’s often about managing emotions​

Some of us - especially in younger generations - are almost constantly online. That’s sometimes for a very practical reason.

Maybe you’re reading this newsletter because you like it and you actively chose to open it. Since you’re a Digital Wellness reader, you probably enjoy learning about how tech impacts our brain and our psyche.

However, another possible explanation is that you are reading these words to alter how you feel. Psychology calls it “emotion regulation”, and we do it every day.

Want to feel motivated to exercise? You might play some rock or rap to get in the mood. Want to calm down after a fight? You might meditate, go for a walk, or call a trusted friend.

From retail therapy to constantly checking the news, the web offers a 24/7 toolkit for digital emotion regulation. While managing our feelings is natural and beneficial, browsing the Internet as a soothing mechanism can be dysfunctional. Excellent article on the state of research by two lecturers from the University of Melbourne.

→ Read the article​

​DF Tube (Distraction Free for YouTube)​

Very, very cool browser extension. I’ve been trying it out myself, and I can only recommend it to stop wasting time in YouTube suggestions.

DF Tube removes the distractions: it hides the suggested videos in the sidebar, as well as the thumbnail suggestions that appear in the player after you finish watching a video. In the settings, you can also choose to hide the trending tab, the homepage feed altogether, and more. Straightforward and efficient.

→ Download for Chrome
​→ Download for Firefox​

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🌿 Featured vines

The Bootstrapped Founder is one of the most famous indie tech newsletters our there. Arvid Kahl shares how to build in public, actionable SaaS advice, audience-building strategies and expert chats. Sign up here!

Todoist is a classic, easily one of the best apps to organise everything and anything in your life. It has beautiful a minimalist design, and it’s available on desktop and mobile. An excellent task manager to stay focused and keep a clear mind (and workspace). Get started for free.

👋 Some of the Features vines are paid sponsorships. They help me keep Digital Wellness free for you to read. Want to share your product with 1,400+ readers and support the newsletter? → Book here​

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🌱 Seed for growth

What will your life look like once you reach your digital well-being goals?

You may be planning to unplug from social media every evening, to check YouTube shorts less often, or to reduce the number of newsletters you’re subscribed to. I say: go for it, these are great goals! But how do you gather the will to start working on them? How do you stay motivated throughout the weeks it will take you to reach your goals?

This is where self-reflection questions can be impactful:

• How much time will you gain by unplugging from social media every evening?
• What will that change for you in terms of sleep? Mood? Relationship with your partner?
• What will you be able to do with all this time?
• How much clearer will your mind be, once you start feeding it with less but higher quality information?

This self-reflection exercise is meant to help you imagine what life can look like when you challenge yourself. Digital well-being can be scary because we often imagine that we can’t actually improve. That’s wrong. It takes work, but we absolutely can get a hold of the way our tech influences our mind. Whenever you’re ready to put the work in, sign up to work with me one-to-one.

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🪴 Bolstering branches

Whenever you are ready, I would love to help you reach tech-life balance:
→ Discover the science behind 30 healthy digital habits with the Tech Bliss workbook​
→ Book a 1:1 coaching session where we'll craft a robust personalised action plan together. I'll help you go from overwhelmed and distracted to present and focused.
→ Invite me to give a workshop at your company. I love to help teams with interactive presentations, to raise their awareness and help them craft better tech habits.

If you enjoyed this newsletter, you can support me by:
→ Sharing it on Twitter or other social platforms
→ Telling your friends and family about it
→ Make a donation to the tip jar below

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Want to share some feedback? A relevant resource you’d like me to feature? Let me know, I respond to every email.

See you next week!

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