The Care and Keeping of a TBR

opening this app should spark joy, or how I’m changing my article reading life in 2025

First and foremost: an apology: it’s January, i know you’ve seen this type of reading goals post again and again. If you’re bored of them, please skip this one (but do give me a like!, i like fame :)). If you stick with me, i hope you get some new ideas from my musings.

This is part 1 in my January goals series. If i was a pro, i’d promise to edit this intro to add the rest later, but the best way to actually see the next posts when they come out is to subscribe ;)

Contrarily to everyone on this app, i don’t have a deep desire to overhaul my entire book reading life for 2025. I’ve made some changes in the middle of 2024 that have been fruitful enough for me to keep them.

In terms of reading habits, i already listed my rules in my 2024 wrap-up:

1. Stay out of bookstagram, and instead pick up books i know i’ll love or that mom recommends (ie no romantasy with the shiny cover because guess what? I don’t like romance actually, so of course i’ll hate it

2. Focus on my preferred genres: hard-ish scifi and fantasy, because i know i’ll be in for a good ride!

3. Add some modern (or classic) French literature so that i don’t forget the language. It’s a vicious cycle because i can’t really talk about those books on here since my readers are mostly from the US, so i don’t prioritize them or stay up to date with what’s being released.

4. Make sure to read at least one (1) non-fiction book a month so that my brain doesn’t rot away in the corporate world.

But even then, i find myself stumped by the same problem: how does one make a (good) TBR¹, and keep it sane? My bookshelves have been purged, but my Substack inbox hasn’t, and it has become a problem.

Does my inbox spark joy?

I’m paying for two Substack publications now, which feels like a major milestone in my adulting journey.² Supporting indie writers? Check. Engaging in thoughtful content? Double-check. But let’s talk about the clutter problem because my Substack inbox is starting to look like my bookshelves before the 2024 purge³ – overwhelming and slightly terrifying.

Now, a wonderful lady gave us some good guidelines to solve the problem: hold the offender in front of your eyes and demand: “do you spark joy? What do you add to my life to justify staying in my house?”. That worked for physical books, but i simply can’t be bothered to go through the tens of thousands of bookmarks, tabs, and posts in my inbox. So we need a new solution (well i do, but you’re coming with me)!

December 31st was supposed to be D-Day. I planned to remove everything from my browser, close all my tabs, and start the year fresh. I’d save the links I genuinely want to revisit as a list with a few keywords, like the magpie-brain collector that I am. But the rest? Gone. I can’t keep letting my inbox become a digital landfill for things I’ll "totally get to later”. Didn’t end up happening on the 31st because i got way too impatient and decided that was the most genius idea ever – my browser has been clean of undue influence since Dec 23rd <3

Now, if you want to do the same as me, here are a few steps that don’t just tell you to unsub and be done with it.

Substack inbox: the cleaning manual

Step one: goodbye

The first step (i’m saying it anyways, in case you do need the step by step help): unsubscribing from newsletters I don’t read and don’t like at all. It’s tough because I hate the idea of anyone getting that "you’ve been unsubscribed" email. But tough love is necessary for a healthy inbox. If I’m not engaging with it and don’t have any emotional connection, it’s out.

Step two: don’t use Substack lol

Second rule: don’t read on the substack website, read in your emails. That way, you can create filters to add “tags” to various letters.

my filters in gmail

For example, i have a lot of mutuals from my writing course that write about stuff i don’t care about at all. I want to be subbed to them, i like to see the finished pieces when i edit them, but i don’t want to have them front and center in my inbox. So i have a “wop people” folder (should be renamed to “friends” one of those days) and their newsletters get triaged there automatically. It also helps me to read them soon after they go out and leave a comment if i like, instead of letting them die for weeks til i get to them!

Another example: there are quite a few newsletters that i don’t love, don’t always care about, but still want to see what they put out and maybe skim it. For them, i have a “ok newsletters” filter, which helps me set expectations! I know i’m not likely to be blown away, and i am prepared to just look.

On the other side of the spectrum, there’s the big “letters i love” folder. To get sent there, your publication needs to have 3 successive issues that i favorite in gmail. I know all the things on there are deeper reflections, great prose, and that they will require both a significant amount of brainpower, and a way to take notes.

Closely related is the “light letters” folder, with the smaller (as in not 4K words in each email) publications, often with a gentle look on life. In here are poems, comics, kind observations, little rants. I enjoy them immensely, and know that i can read them in the metro on my commute, and restack the bits i love.

And finally, the cornerstone of this whole pyramid: the “new letters” folder, ie where i send stuff by default. Maybe i stumbled across one of their posts and liked it, maybe they were recommended when i subbed to another, … No matter what, they start by going here. Once i’ve received a few issues from them, i decide which forever folder they belong in.

Step three: don’t save shit you won’t eat

The third piece is a system for saving shit. I’m the queen of hitting the little “save banner” thingy with a “i’ll read that later when i have all my wits about me!” attitude. But that’s a recipe for disasters (plural), so i need a set of rules.

Before saving:

1. You need to read the Title and the About page of the author. This saves me from keeping all the stuff from one (1) restacked quote that looks nice, except the full post isn’t about that as the title tells you, or the author turns out to be a trumpist and i don’t want that in my feed

2. Skim the post ie read all the headings. This prevents the really bad “this title is so so so cool i wish i came up with that!” compulsive hoarding. If the headings look nice, the topic seems interesting, and the thoughts are deep enough, i can keep it

3. If the Read Time is less than 5 minutes i have to read it on the spot. No saving little nuggets that i can just digest – when i talk of “saving” i mean putting it in my inbox. It’s perfectly allowed to read, enjoy and save because i maybe want to find it later (i won’t, but it’s completely hidden away in the archive tab so it doesn’t matter).

4. Finally, ask myself the usual questions: do i really care? Does the author look like they have something to say? Does their prose irk me? If it sparks joy, then keep <3

Step four: don’t use Substack (again)

Finally, i found that i need an archiving system of my own. Yes, Substack has an “Archive” tab, but it only loads 10 posts at a time, doesn’t have folders, does have awful search capabilities, and is just plainly impractical.

With this system, the inbox is only for stuff that need to be read before the end of the month. On the 1st, everything gets deleted again, which should (hopefully, pray for me) keep it sane and useful. But what happens to all the stuff that i don’t get to reading, or that i read but want to reference again soon?

Here comes my “second brain” as we used to call them. It’s just a bunch of notes, in (more or less) organized folders. I use Obsidian because i matches my values of open-source, local-first, completely private, … I even pay for the sync thing so that i can have my notes on my work computer and procrastinate on company time!

That’s where i keep notes of everything i read that ends up being relevant and noteworthy (duh). The one-month-deletion rule forces me to follow up on saved articles instead of letting them sit there like forgotten relics. Each of them gets a note title:

• The prefix (-Ar) for unread articles [promoted to (Ar) once i get to them]

• The name of the post

• The name of the author

• The date (if relevant to the topic)

Inside i keep the url, an internal link to my note about the author, quotes i liked, and my notes. Then i move it to folders: either thematically if it’s something i’ve been reading a lot about (eg Third Places, Friendship, Metaverse (don’t ask)), or just a big category (Books, Movies, Social, …)

It’s all very dumb and easy, which is why it works. Notion databases look cool, but irl i’m never doing that much effort. I feel a bit dumb for telling you about such a simple thing, so do reach out to me if it was any help (or if you have further questions! It’s not that deep but maybe i missed the interesting part).

If bookshelves should spark joy, so should my inbox. Here’s to a cleaner, more intentional start.

So how does it feel? Is my inbox glittering with joy?

not only did i do it, i posted a Note in the next 10 minutes!

Some findings:

1. it feels soooo good to be clean! I knew i was being stressed out by my Substack inbox, but i didn’t anticipate how right i was about it! I immediately felt so much lighter, and recovered my motivation to go read new authors and just have fun :))

2. the clutter will creep back in asap! It’s been 3 weeks since i emptied my inbox in Substack, and i’ve already filled it back up with all the shit i save. The rules have definitely helped mitigate the amount, but it’s still a bit too much. I know i can’t promise myself to do a weekly clean up, so it means i’ll have to be very vigilant to follow up on the big monthly one or else i’ll be back to square one.

3. it’s a lot of effort to organize everything, but at least 90% of the value i get from it, is the immediate dopamine hit when i put an article in its little proper folder with its little friends. That alone is worth it, especially now that i’m more familiar with my system: i’ve added some shortcuts to the various programs and it’s become a brainless task to create a new note and save it.

4. i don’t really look back on anything, EXCEPT i do once in a while and then it’s a lifesaver! The Alexandria meme i added a few sections above was but a dream in my memory, until i dug it up from the memes folder in a simple query… That alone justifies my efforts :)

I had two more sections planned for this post, but i realize i’ve already yapped too much, so i’ll keep them safe and will make full-blown posts for each. Which would you like to see first? 1) my love-hate relationship with books bingos and challenges, or 2) my feelings about not having read any of the american/english classics (cause i want to be a lit girl you see, but i’m French so i have lotta catch up to do!)…

Please leave a comment or reply to this email! I’d love to hear what you think of my new plan, and how YOU manage your Substack inbox!

If you’d like some further reading, may i redirect you to my love letter to Storygraph (ie why you should leave that derelict spaceship that is Goodreads and come colonize this new-ish website with me). Read you next time <3

1. To Be Read (pile): the list of books (or stuff in general) you want to read

2. For the nosy-bodies, it’s Michael Dean’s Essay Architecture and Valerie’s Club Reticent

3. I should probably write an entire post about this, but the purge was heartbreaking, and very lucrative lol (thank you Vinted)