Dear Products,
I know me better than you. I’ll come find you WHEN I need you. In the meantime, please just sit tight and stay out of my way.
-Mr Consumption is Overrated
You can opt out of junk mail. Varies by area. Likely can be done by a "no junk" sticker, or by opting out via your postal service, or both. (A lot of fliers aren't distributed by postal service, but legally must obey no junk signs)
Email is trickier, but recently I've had success simply unsubscribing from absolutely everything with an unsubscribe link. I used to leave stuff in if it might be useful.
To my surprise I now receive very few junk emails per day.
>I know me better than you. I’ll come find you WHEN I need you. In the meantime, please just sit tight and stay out of my way.
All of the above said, ads actually work. It is possible of course they don't work on you, the reader of this comment. (Meaning anyone reading, not just the parent comment)
But ads really do work in boosting sales.
Physical mail I just go down and throw it all out every so often. I wrote the date down on my whiteboard once after checking it and I noted that I go roughly three months in between times when I checked my mail.