How do you all cope with your phones?

[TowardsTheFlatHorizon]

Because I really cannot cope with mine. I have 1042 unread WhatsApp messages, no idea how many unread texts and emails. If my phone rings and I can answer it I will. If I get a WhatsApp or text that's a new conversation I'll answer that if I can, because it's generally a work enquiry (I am part self employed). Everything else, it's hit or miss. I've definitely missed emails about work enquiries because there are too many emails to look through, most of them garbage. This is after unsubscribing from everything I possibly can and having a second email account that I use for internet shopping only, to try and corral the garbage. I feel completely overwhelmed by it all and cross and alienated by my phone. How do other people manage it all? I'm drowning in this shit.

Can you at least set up rules for your email so that work emails get flagged or ping you and/or get moved into a separate folder so that you don't miss them? You can also set up rules to move messages from family members into another folder, etc. That will at least reduce what's in your in-box and ensure you don't miss important things. I don't know if something similar might exist with texts.
As for WhatsAp, I've no solution. I find it very confusing and difficult to keep track of all the different groups I'm in (and I'm not using it for work).

I am very very very selective with WhatsApp groups. I don’t need messages pinging from 20 women in my aqua aerobics class all evening etc.

Thank you @SylvanMoon that's really helpful.

I have two long-standing contracts both of which communicate with me via separate apps, which I get email notifications from when messages come in. So I can set up folders to put all of those notifications in. There's still a lot of garbage tbh - communications go out to everyone registered on the app for stuff that often doesn't concern all of us. But at least it wouldn't then be clogging up my personal email every time someone sends a message about eg the dishwasher.

That might also help me not to miss new email enquiries from people who want to hire me which are currently getting lost in my quagmire of an inbox.

@OneLimePombear I really hate WhatsApp and wish I could restrict mine further. Unfortunately the two main groups that are incessant I do need for work - only intermittent, but useful/lucrative when it comes up. Sadly, one of them has 50 members.

The best one I'm in is for another intermittent contract and it's set so that only the (two) admins can post. I fucking love that group. There are loads of people in it but it's largely silent. Very likely there are little group hive offs chatting away constantly to each other elsewhere but it bothers me not because I cannot see them.

Does anyone else have tips to manage WhatsApp groups? Bearing in mind I'm not an admin on any of them.

Two suggestions

Mute them and then put a daily reminder on your phone to read through them in one go at a convenient time.

Use the search function to highlight whatever keywords you think are relevant to your self employment/specific interest in the messages so you focus on those messages. This might be most useful for dealing with a huge amount of unread messages

Get separate work and personal phones. Switch off the work phone when you're not working.
Remove alerts/notifications.
Mute any groups you are in that are not essential business. You do not need to see the (let's say), book club group that is full of crap like whether somebody might have a cold, or 25 people wishing someone else happy birthday.
I can't bear to see a single alert, or unread email, so I read everything and either file it, delete it or deal with it immediately.

Here for tips as I also find mine overwhelming!