Getting My Life in Order Part 2

Since the end of December I've been having a grand old time clicking the UNSUBSCRIBE links in dozens and dozens of emails that show up in my inboxes (on three major email accounts). I never read most of the stuff that comes in, instead I would just delete it. As it turns out, as long as you don't opt out of an email, the sender uses that as an opportunity to keep sending.
So, while the quick and dirty method of selecting a bunch of mails and deleting them was effective for the moment, it didn't stop anything from coming. A few people had warned me that clicking an unsubscribe link is like swatting a fly. That is, when you kill a single fly, a dozen of its friends show up to the funeral. So far I haven't had any experience like that.
It's nice to get some control of the inbox. Frankly I was a bit surprised at how much stuff comes in and piles up that I just don't ever bother to read. Ads, newsletters, press releases, you name it. Unless it is specific to my job, or what I'm working on at the moment these messages often just sat there waiting for me to do "something" with them. I'd kid myself that "eventually" I would get around to at least scanning these things, but that doesn't happen either.
So, I've set up a pretty good rules system in Apple Mail to take all the newsletters that I know I need to follow in the course of my job, and divert them to a NEWSLETTERS folder. At this writing there are 17 different newsletters that I actually do check out regularly for my job, and each of them goes to this folder.
Emails from coworkers go into individual folders as well. This has the added benefit of keeping conversation threads intact for easy reference. No more scrolling around the in box -- just go the right folder and the entire conversation is there.
A quick scan of the folder counters shows me which coworkers I need to respond to sooner rather than later, and the newsletters I still get are more easily scanned when they are in one folder.
But the key, as I said before, was my aggressive UNSUBSCRIBE campaign. That simple step alone has  eliminated maybe half the stuff that filled my inbox each day -- if not more. Now, when a new mail comes in, I get a perverse pleasure in deciding that I will read it, delete it, or click UNSUBSCRIBE right away.
Taking power over a technology that had gotten way out of control is very cool.