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

Don’t do anything manually, you’ll probably find it hard to track everything that way - but a script to parse your browse history (usually a sqlite file in your profile - and depending on browser you may be able to see sync’d history from other devices), your watch history in your video storage/streaming services, your # views of photos etc etc

See if you can enrich your metrics collection with the inevitable global variables of life (time of day you consumed something, what was the weather like, was that a work day, check the hours of sleep & exercise you had from your phone or wherever…)

Best case: you get to know yourself a little better.

I’ve done this twice now, first time was a complete waste of time. I learned nothing of value. Second time lead to me ditching a ton of podcasts, renewing my audible subscription but changing the types of books i get, it was also the turning point for coming off facebook for me, there were a bunch of really high value outcomes that second time.

Of course with the exception for certain documents such as birth certificates, tax records (until mandated), etc..

2. To-do lists come in two forms: a vital, nonnegotiable, long-lived list and ephemeral lists that serve you for a day or a week. Vital items: renew car registration, send wedding invites, find a primary care physician. Items for an ephemeral list: wash the car, schedule a meeting with Bob, try that new show somebody mentioned. Throw away the ephemeral list after its time has expired. Non-essential items can only be put on an ephemeral list, never the long-term list.

3. Don't treat stuff as precious if you discovered it by a simple web search. If you think "I should watch more French movies to maintain the French I learned in school" and Google "best French films of the 21st century," don't add any bookmarks or list entries for what you find. You can always do the search again. (No, you did not accomplish anything of lasting value by reading through the search results and picking the ones that appealed to you.)

4. Don't save things expecting them to change your behavior tomorrow. Don't think, "I keep thinking I should learn French. Maybe if I put some things on my to-do list...." Every day, the you that exists that day will make the decisions. Next Tuesday's you may or may not be smarter than today's you, but odds are that next Tuesday's you is not very interested in what today's you wants them to do. Only bequeath to them information they'll actually value and use.

5. Use a service like Pocket to bookmark articles. I use Pocket, and it's great because I only see it if I go to it, and it gives me no indicator of how many articles I've saved. I can scroll back if I want to, I can search in my articles if I want to, I can tag them... but I don't have to do any of that.

6. Make Inbox Zero a regular hygiene task. Getting to Inbox Zero every day is pretty hard-core. Getting to Inbox Zero every month is not so bad.

7. Unsubscribe from everything. You will find so much stuff by seeking it out that you'll have no time to consume it all. Why, on top of that, would you add things coming to you passively?

8. Declare bankruptcy on non-essentials. Do go back and check for things you really should take care of, like tax paperwork and out-of-the-blue emails from friends you haven't seen in ten years.

1,000 individual services is at least 900 too many. Probably 990 too many.