When it feels like you're drowning in content

Some ideas for making Substack (and the rest of the Internet!) feel more sustainable

As of the time of this writing, I am subscribed to nearly 100 Substacks.

That may seem like an excessive amount. I certainly thought so when I made this discovery a month or so ago. It felt silly, actually, since a Substack is not like a social media account that you can follow and then scroll past in .02 seconds. There’s a lot of meaty, substantial writing here that’s worth taking time with. How could I possibly keep up with 100+ writers?

But not all writers publish regularly - in fact, some rarely do. And I’ve been really careful about following writers I actually want to hear from (and quietly unfollowing those who just aren’t speaking to me right now.)

I started to realize that it wasn’t the number of Substack subscriptions that was proving to be overwhelming, but when I was reading the content (all times of the day), where I was being notified of it (all the places), and how other, less-rewarding content (coughInstagramcough) was competing with it for my limited attention.

So a few weeks ago I started taking steps to regain control of my Substack reading habits, as well as the rest of the content I consume (or dodge) on the Internet.

Here are some of the workarounds that are working well, complete with screen shots for the app-challenged folk like me.

Here on Substack…

I set my notification preferences to app-only.

For now, I am not getting any of my Substack newsletters via email, which means I only see them when I’m logged in on my browser, or on my app. That eliminated the confusion that I had been experiencing from getting double notifications (in email AND in app) and then not remembering whether I had already read the post or not, or where.

Substack offers quite a few ways to customize notifications. As long as I’m only getting my notifications in one place, I don’t mind getting them all, and in fact, I rarely even notice them (I have banner/badge notifications turned completely off on my phone anyway); but I could see myself toggling a few of these “off” if I switch back to email.

I made this change about three weeks ago and it made a HUGE difference both in the amount of email I was getting, and the pleasure I get when I open the app and see that I have a nice little pile of unread Substacks waiting to be read.

I would really like to become less phone-oriented in general, so at some point I could see myself flipping this around - only reading on my email and not getting on my app at all - but until I get my email situation under control (more about that later), this solution is working well.

I’m sending some Substack articles to my Kindle.

This is not difficult to do, and I much, much, much prefer the experience of reading pretty much anything longer-form on an e-reader vs. my phone or computer screen. It’s been so lovely to sit down to read first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and open a device I use only for reading, that’s easy on my eyes and doesn’t have any other tabs to make me feel jumpy or distracted, and to slowly soak up my Substack content there.

Here’s how: in the Substack app, click the “share” button at the bottom of the post you want to send to your Kindle, (the little box with the arrow coming out of it, circled below:)

Then, at the bottom, you’ll see three dots above the word “More.” Click that, and scroll until you see the Kindle app option. Tap it, and a window will pop up that looks like the below. Click “Send”, and the article will go to your Kindle library (which, for me, automatically downloads on my Kindle device.)

I have not figured out how to read paid Substack content on my Kindle yet, so this is not a perfect solution - but how lovely that would be!

Maybe I’ll print them out instead? Or it’s possible I’ll be able to send them from my email once I’m reading there again. All good things to consider as I’m reconsidering my relationship with my phone.

I set my Substack Notes to only show me posts from people I’m following.

See the drop-down in the top left-hand corner below? Toggle that to “following,” and Notes will ONLY show you posts from users you follow, including their restacks and shares.

(A note that if you use Substack both in the app and on desktop, you’ll need to toggle this setting in both places.)

Notes used to be a confusing and very random-feeling place for me, and this change has helped immensely. The feed is not only a lot slower and quieter, but it feels friendlier, too. I’m still discovering some great new-to-me voices, shared via those writers I already follow and trust…it’s just a lot less of them, which I prefer.

Elsewhere on the Internet…

Most of us are trying to juggle multiple internet platforms, whether just as readers or also creators. And it can all be…a lot. Here are some things I’m doing to keep the other apps I use from taking over my life.

I removed Facebook and Instagram from my phone entirely. I haven’t had the Facebook app on my phone for years, and went from February to July without the Instagram app - but I downloaded it again lately when I found myself wondering if I “should” be using the app-native features (Stories, which you can’t do at all from a browser, and Reels, which are harder to do.) After a few months’ experimentation, the results were clear: the ease of being able to do things Meta’s way were not worth the cost of walking around with Meta having easy access to my brain all the time. And while I used to occasionally access Instagram or Facebook from a browser window on my phone, when I started to find myself wanting to peek at red lights, I logged out there, too. Now I can only access either of these social networks if I’m sitting on my computer, and the funny thing is - I rarely actually want to get on either one of them from my computer, which should tell me something about how these phone apps mess with our brains.

With my book coming out in the spring, and as the co-owner of a retail store, it feels wise, right now at least, for me to hold on to these communication tools. But I have become increasingly comfortable with using them as broadcast-only platforms, and ditching the pressure of feeling like I need to treat them as “social” networks (who can be truly “social” with thousands of people?) For whatever reason, checking social media only on my computer does not seem to trigger the same neural “keep scrolling! Forever!” pathways in my brain as the apps do, so I’m comfortable with this solution for now.

I am about to ditch an email address. In 2011 or so, I more or less abandoned a Yahoo! email account that I’d had since the late nineties. I was tired of fighting with spam, and had a shiny new Gmail account that I was eager to move over to instead. Now, twelve or thirteen years later, I’m ready to axe that one, too. The unwanted messages are out of control, outweighing messages I need or want to read at a ratio of about a hundred to one.

I’ve tried everything: manual unsubscribing, apps like Unroll.Me, emailing directly and asking to be removed from lists…nothing is making much of a dent, and I’m getting hundreds of messages per day that I don’t actually want to read, but still have to take the time to absorb and deal with.

The last time I switched my main email address, I simply slowly stopped visiting the old one as often, and started using the new one instead until I was only checking it a few times a year when I needed to dig up an old password reset or something.

But in the ensuing years, Google and all its associated properties have gotten their claws in much deeper. I now use my Gmail account to log into multiple services, and I use Google Docs, Photos, and Drive - so I’ve really put off this move. But the hassle factor of moving is finally being outweighed by the soul-sucking, many-times-per-day disappointment of scanning my inbox and seeing that, despite having dozens of new messages, none of them are actually things I want to read.

I used to love email, back when I was receiving almost entirely long, funny missives from friends, interesting newsletters from other writers, and assignment letters from editors. I’d like to get back to that reality again, so it’s time for drastic measures.

As a content creator…

I’ll be writing more about this in the future, but I’m starting by making a major change in my podcast publishing schedule, which I shared about in this week’s episode of The Tea’s Made podcast:

As of right now, I’m still mulling over the right balance here on Substack between staying in the cadence of writing and publishing regularly (which, as a writer, can be a very valuable habit to build) while not over-committing or throwing up posts just to have something in the feed.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that in the near future. For now, though, I’d love to hear from you.

How do you keep your Substack reading, social media scrolling, email inbox, and all the rest of it under control? Are you eager to try any of the ideas I shared above?