Changing the way I do business…

After several years of “taking all comers” in the social media world, I’ve decided to do some pruning. I’m not going to start running around, closing accounts and generally becoming a social media hermit. I’m tempted, mind you. I get tons of email every day, most of it I’ve never subscribe to per se. I’m getting because I’ve been fairly promiscuous on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. If you sleep with the dogs, you get fleas, I believe is how the old saying goes.

The past few days, I’ve started with my email box. I’ve been using Gmail now for a number of years (my earliest Gmail messages go back to 2007, soon after the service started. I was one of its early adopters. I’m still a fan of all-things-Google, BUT I’ve become aware that just because I can store gigabytes of email, doesn’t mean I have to. I don’t have to accept everything that blows into my email box, nor do I have store everything that comes from everybody.

My general methodology for undertaking this spring cleaning is to first make sure the new message isn’t something I have to act on! (Yes, I get a lot bills by email now that I used to get by paper mail.) If it isn’t something I have to act on, is it something I find educational or entertaining. I’m finding there’s a lot less in this category than I might of suspected. How many get-rich-quick gurus to I really want cluttering my in-basket? Certainly not 12 gigs worth, which is where my Gmail storage is hovering right now. Mind you it isn’t ALL email, but once I began winnowing through 5 years worth of the stuff, I did see my storage number start to drop.

I’ll keep everyone posted on how it’s going. I’ve also started narrowing my focus on the “big 3″ — Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. That will be the topic for another post I’m sure: do we really need all three?

Anyone else doing some cyber Spring cleaning? What are your strategies for getting rid of the clutter?