Why I Hate Receiving Email Notifications And How I manage them

Majority of people think that email notifications are for increasing productivity of the users, but in reality, they are there for bringing users back to their product.

Email Notifications can be divided into two categories based on their source, the one that comes from sources which are frequently accessed, the one that aren't.

Notification from Products Which Frequently Accessed

I really hate receiving notifications from the products which are frequently accessed for various reasons including duplication, high frequency of such emails which shadows important content.

Some of the worst offenders under this categories are GitHub, Linkedin, Zerodha, National Stock Exchange(NSE), Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE).

The last three send emails notifications about the balance in my trading account. But why would anyone want to get that information over email. Stock prices change every second. They send that email weekly, that makes it even more outdated and useless.

Notifications From Products Which Are Not Frequently Accessed

I do not hate them as much. They can be good but it really depends on the context.

Monthly email digest about niche blogs, TOS and privacy policy updates are okay in my opinion but again it depends on the context.

How I Manage Email Notifications

I start by not signing up on any unnecessary platforms, using aliases.

For my professional life, I use Outlook email. The reason I choose it because it has IMAP, rules based filtering, good spam filter, high reputation, and I would be really providing my data to Microsoft through GitHub, Linkedin. I use NeoMutt as my email client, Neovim as a text editor along with gh-cli, and gpg. While GitHub provides an option to reply to issues, pulls through email but I did not find that workflow productive. My whole setup is "no frills". You can find my dotfiles, manifesto on my, GitHub repository

So here are my thoughts about types of email notifications I hate. But I would like to share that I do not hate all email notifications. There are many of them which I eagerly wait for, such as those sent by readers of my website, confidential messages which are properly encrypted with my PGP key.