Ask HN: How can I stop my inbox/wishlist/bookmarks/tabs/todos from growing?

I use usehappen.com to archive saves/bookmarks and upcoming events. It's saved me an enormous amount of stress.

Todo list growing is okay. Only top 5 are relevant. Just have daily item to drop all that are outside top 10. Move timed events to calendar. Okay for bookmarks to grow infinitely - no obligation to complete.

Stop with FOMO mentality. That is prime problem. Trying to never miss out. Life is short and more things to do than not do. Maximize list of things to not do. Remove optionality. Just lying to yourself since not going to do it.

But key action items:

- Only top 10 on todo

- Snooze for inbox to moment of action

- Tasks to Calendar for moment of action

- Drop all else.

Life unchanged on outcome; better on morale; trust me

my work inbox is by nature of my job is some sort of email hydra; if I take out one thread, 10 more appear. This is kind of a blessing/curse of always-on communication and instant connections in that you can drown yourself in them, and in fact, some like it that way. Edit: Forgot to write how I handle this -- for actual emails I need to check, just careful filters (with a backup of the filters) helps me and I can more rapidly figure out which folders need attention when they have badges, which can sit, and which is the "quick check" (general inbox). The benefit for me is I can shift context a lot better -- items in my Team's DL folder I pay high attention to, general reports I relegate to "when I have time/need", Boss emails get high attention always (one of my few "must be 0" folders), and the rest are just held until the next coffee break and and browsed over a coffee.

Comparing it to finance I think is actually a risky thing as you have an obligation with finances (debt), but you don't necessarily have an obligation to all the items in your inbox. First step is allow yourself to acknowledge this. The world won't end if you don't answer some items or if you don't happen to watch a unique one-of-a-kind youtube video.

I used to digitally horde when I was in University because bandwidth was a commodity and I never knew if I'd ever have a chance to see certain movies or play certain games again. I kept multiple 50 disk spindles of Wii and GCN games I knew I would never play because I was just so into the process of using my modded Wii that the process was the attraction, not the actual games themselves.

Eventually, I just fell into minimalism naturally. Moving cross country and emigrating helped a bit here as it changed my priorities from "hoard as much as possible" to "why the hell did I buy a novelty bottle opener in the first place?" as my needs changed.

With reading, realize that a lot of it is garbage and learn to filter good sources from bad ones. This is regrettably easier said than done, but it's an old university habit I learned because necessity (read: laziness) meant I needed to find premiere papers fast and sort good sources rich with information from bad ones.

For articles in particular, I ended up just taking a long look at the articles I came back to and found the style that resonated with me the most and that I felt had the biggest impact on the way I think. Challenging articles with good logical thought processes that advanced my thinking or articles on subjects I was not familiar with but knew enough to start on really got my interest and typically are my clicks on sites like HN. I avoid too many content aggregators, especially ones with heavy focus on karma/upvotes/whatever as the metric is perverse towards interesting content in my opinion and more just interested in adding content to get the reward. I use other content aggregators like Instagram, but very sparingly as I just don't feel the need to keep on top of tons of trends; if it hits one of the few sites I check regularly, it means it's a premiere meme or topic and usually I can spend a few minutes researching on my own to figure out what's up.

I shifted to become a creator of my own; my own code, stories, writing just for me, videos, etc, and it changed the way I viewed content available. Once I started making my own things with my mind and hands, suddenly I didn't feel so compelled to watch others do the same. It's one part arrogance I guess and one part freedom. (e.g., I used to really be into FoodNetwork even to the point of getting into reality shows. I told myself it was to learn to cook, but I never ever did it. Then I just started doing it, first for myself so that my mistakes were private, and once I thought "eyyyy this was an alright meal", I started to share it with friends and family, and sure enough, even my mistakes were happily eaten. Ugly but tasty)

If you're going to use one of your options, I'd say go with bankruptcy. Just like how a spring cleaning is therapeutic once you work up the will for it, so is cleaning out your digital footprint. I've been working from MacBook Airs since 2012 (2 of them in fact! 2012 and 2019, and the 2012 is still kicking with a friend who needed a new laptop), so I got very used to a small digital foot print fast. I kept only the pictures I really treasured and felt an immediate emotional response to each time I check them, and realized that the rest were like any other fad, and my attraction passed.

Clean out what you have and do the great purge. The first one hurts and you might have a few false starts while you wait for the right moment with the motivation to clean, but once you hit that moment, you ought feel a lot of stress and weight lifted off of you.

Bankruptcy makes sense if you're paying interest. Just schedule some time to go through the backlog.