I set out to clean my email inbox. I ended up cleaning my entire leadership life.
Last week I made a decision: every solicitation email that came in was getting unsubscribed. Regardless of what it was. I told myself if I miss it, I can always come back. I expected twenty, maybe thirty lists. I unsubscribed from over fifty. Favorite stores. Travel blogs I had read for years. News briefings. Coupon apps from 2019. All of it.
When I was done, I felt lighter. Not because the emails were gone, although that was genuinely delightful, but because I had made a choice. I had looked at everything walking into my mental space uninvited and said: not anymore. I didn’t ask for this today. And then I sat there and thought – why don’t I do this everywhere else in my life?
Here are the four subscriptions that might be draining you right now and how to hit unsubscribe.
1. THE DRAMA SUBSCRIPTION
Drama in the workplace does not usually arrive with a label. It creeps in slowly. A tense team dynamic here, a person who is always stirring something there. And before you know it, you are spending real mental energy managing, navigating, and absorbing something you never consciously signed up for.
Unsubscribing from drama looks like deciding what you will and will not engage with. It looks like choosing not to be the person who has all the details about the conflict on the third floor. It looks like redirecting conversations back to work instead of into the weeds of what someone else said to someone else on Tuesday.
You cannot always eliminate drama from your environment. But you can choose whether you are subscribed to it.
2. THE COWORKER WHO MAKES YOUR TIME THEIR TIME
This one is the sneakiest subscription because it builds gradually. Someone needs help. You help them because you are a helper, a fixer, a get-it-done woman. And then they need help again. And again. And somewhere along the way, their work became your work, their problems became your problems, and their productivity is now running on your energy.
Unsubscribing here looks like loving people from a productive distance. “I know you can figure this one out, come back if you really get stuck.” Said warmly, meant sincerely.
3. THE EXTRA YES SUBSCRIPTION
How many things are currently on your plate that you would not say yes to if asked today, fresh, with full awareness of your capacity? The committee. The project no one else wanted. The event you RSVP’d to three months ago and now approach with dread.
Every yes is a no to something else. Every yes to something misaligned with your actual values and priorities is a no to the things that genuinely matter. Rest, creativity, presence with the people you love.
Your yes is valuable. It is time to start treating it like it is.
4. THE NOISE SUBSCRIPTION
The news you refresh even though it makes you anxious. The social media scroll that started as five minutes and turned into forty. The opinion of the person in your life who does not have to live the consequences of your decisions.
Unsubscribing from noise is not about disconnecting from the world. It is about being deliberate. Asking what you are consuming that is genuinely fueling you, versus what is just filling space.
YOUR CHALLENGE THIS WEEK
Write down three things you are currently subscribed to that you would not consciously choose today. You don’t have to fix all three right now. Just name them. Awareness is the first step.
If you are ready to do this work with support, book a free coaching session. Your time belongs to you. Let’s make sure it acts like it.
