#90: Attention.

I found the attack on my inbox to be infuriating.

Sep 24, 2024

I recently joined two separate email lists only to unsubscribe days later. I signed up with the best of intentions, inspired by what these women were doing and saying on social media, but the minute they got ahold of my inbox I became massively overwhelmed.

One of these woman, or more appropriately her automated email marketing sequence, sent 14 individual emails over the course of 10 days. The other sent 10 emails in 7 days, with 4 of them arriving in under 12 hours. My inbox was quite literally drowning in their content and I felt under attack, my nervous system suddenly out of whack due to their persistent attempt to capture my attention.

Attention (noun): noticing someone or something.

This type of email marketing is not uncommon, but after reading Please Unsubscribe, Thanks by

Julio Vincent Gambuto

over the summer I found the attack on my inbox to be infuriating. Immediately after reading said book, I promptly unsubscribed from email lists that no longer felt like a good fit, from Instagram accounts that no longer felt relatable, from outdated beliefs around what makes someone interesting or worth my time and attention. This strategy allowed me to take back control of my own life and really focus in on the narratives I was being fed, it also helped me to be intentional with my time and with my mind.

As a follow up and because I am currently raising young enough kids, I recently read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. While his narrative and research is primarily focused on the impact of “phone-based childhoods” and the subsequent mental health outcomes for adolescence, I couldn’t help but question if the persistent pull of the internet might be contributing to the demise of more than just teenage minds.

A must read for any parent raising kids.

We live in an attention seeking economy where clicks and views are considered a scarce commodity and companies and/or personal brands will use whatever marketing strategies they can to capture and hold our attention. People actually earn money based on their ability to hold our eyeballs for longer than their peers which is why so many people are dancing and singing and creating extreme or persistent content on the internet.

People actually earn money based on their ability to hold our eyeballs for longer than their peers which is why so many people are dancing and singing and creating extreme or persistent content on the internet.

Does anyone else remember when Instagram was a continuous feed of ‘mostly’ people we actually knew?! When you could actually scroll to the bottom of what is now a never ending feed full of strangers?! Or better yet, does anyone remember life before the internet had control of our minds and stripped us of our sense of time?!

I feel especially grateful that iPhones and social media were not an option for me as a teen, but also acutely aware that the rise of ‘influencers’ and their often skewed perspective and/or reality coincided with the birth of my first kid and countless sleepless nights illuminated by the blue glow coming off my iPhone. There is no doubt that my decision to launch my first business and position it as a ‘personal brand’ was heavily influenced by the other women (and especially mothers) I saw showing up in my own instagram feed, promising the ‘ease’ of the life they had with cell phone in hand constantly promoting their own lives.

The people I find the most ‘entertaining’ on the internet are not people I happen to know in real life and part of their entertainment value is the fact that they show up day and night, exposing all aspects of their lives. This makes them seem relatable and yet a cost benefit analysis has reminded me that this is not how I want to live my life. In fact I have quit social media entirely, more than once.

Social media will tell you that more attention equals more likes which equals more conversion, but at what cost?! I do not need anyone yelling at me, but actually selling me whatever thing they are promoting with multiple emails in one day. I do not need my attention to be broken by the endless pings as these emails continuously swarm my inbox. In the end, I enacted my option to unsubscribe and immediately freed up a lot of space in my mind.

Truth be told, subscribing (and then unsubscribing) to these two women’s email lists made me want to quit emailing entirely. I would never want to be the reason someone felt attacked, would never want to contribute to someone else’s overwhelm, would never want anyone to feel the way these incessant emails made me feel.

I consider it a major blessing that so many of you have chosen to read my words, which also happens to be the way I promote my work, but deciding when or what to share can feel intimidating. What if this is the email that inspires many of you to unsubscribe?! What if my words simply aren’t worth your time?! What if my writing no longer feels right?!

What if this is the email that inspires many of you to unsubscribe?! What if my words simply aren’t worth your time?! What if my writing no longer feels right?!

I have spent the past few years privately assessing my own contentment versus always being hungry for new content, constantly walking the fine line between living life off versus online, and learning to appropriately measure my own self-worth not through my kids or my work but through my own ability to know and understand myself, my motivations, and to constantly reassess and challenge my own cravings and outward behaviors.

All of this to say don’t let someone else’s agenda and/or attention seeking behavior get in your way. Only you know what you need. Only you can decide whether to stay or leave. Only you know when to hit unsubscribe. Only you know what content is adding or subtracting from your life. Let this be your friendly reminder to protect your time, your energy, and your attention!