Lots of folks are talking about Marie Kondo now that she has a Netflix show. I haven’t watched the show but I skimmed her book. And my clothing drawers have never been the same! I love her advice of thanking items “for their service” — gratitude is awesome.

The phrase that’s never helped me much is the “spark joy” rule. It seems to work for everyone cleaning their rooms, but not me, until now. I realized lately that it helps me enormously with defending my email inbox, instead.

My email is a private line right into my pocket so everything in there should spark joy, not dread! Does that email newsletter spark joy? Before you hand out a business card: will this person bring me joy?

It’s actually a very good test. Many email newsletters are awesome– but for me, they sometimes inspire panic to buy something or the anxiety that I’m behind on reading the news. Unsubscribe! And it’s for the opposite reason — sparking joy — that I violate the sacred rule of “inbox zero” and keep subscriptions to a few newsletters that I love.