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Do fewer things
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Reading time: 1.39 391 words Hey Reader, “Do fewer things. Work at a natural pace. Obsess over quality.” YES CAL. I love this. That’s the key message of Cal Newport’s book Slow Productivity and I’m thinking of sticking it up on my wall. In a world where everything is fastfasterfastest alllll the damn time, and we’re all exhausted, this book is chef’s kiss just what we need. He’s all about working hard on fewer things and as someone who has a thousand ideas a minute and then tries to do them all at once, I want to embrace it. So I’ve been changing the way I work: Mondays are for writing, and ONLY for writing. This email you’re reading now was made earlier, then edited, then edited again — and it makes such a difference. No longer do I feel like I’m cramming in this letter to you before I have to do 385 other things. I get to obsess over it a little bit. Because how many of the myriad other things do I really need to do? Really? Do I actually need to create a whole new filing system because I couldn’t find that one thing? Or do I need to organise my work better in future? Do I really need to create an entire website dedicated to each of my books? Do I need a THIRD newsletter? Do I need to create yet another product, when the last one isn’t finished yet? Do I need to alphabetise all my books, right now, then colour code them and organise them according to size in height then width, then despair about how NOTHING MAKES SENSE? No. No, I do not. What I need is to focus on the things that really matter to me: writing as well as I can, and serving my clients as well as I can. And doing both those things means doing fewer other things. So I sat and made a list. All the things I do every day. What is necessary? What is a nice-to-have? And what can I yeet into the sea? What do you think? What are you doing that you don’t need to do? How can you simplify your life so you create space and time to do what you really want to do? TTFN, Vicky 🫡 p.s. Know someone who might enjoy this email? Please forward it to them and get them to sign up here.
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Learn to Write Like You Mean It
Join 500+ writers, creatives, misfits, and weirdos and learn to write like you mean it in 10 minutes a day. Get ONE practical tip, story, or shenanigan on Mondays + Wednesdays + a creative goodie bag on Friday 🖖🏼
Reading time: 4.22 1,039 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, My Grandma, Muriel Edwardson, was born in 1927 in Keighley, West Yorkshire. She died on Monday night, aged 99. Can you imagine the changes she’s seen in her long life? Automatic washing machines. Indoor toilets. Hot running water. Space travel! Vaccines and people not dying of preventable diseases. Central heating. Television sets, then colour TV. Microwave ovens. Custom kitchen deliveries. (Sorry) The INTERNET! She...
Reading time: 6.32 1,551 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, “I know you hate AI but—“ Lemme stop you right there. I have a lot of opinions about AI but I don’t blanket HATE it. I can see how you might think that, given that I am on record (on podcasts, stages, and my own email list) ranting about humanity’s march towards smooth brains and beige blancmange and possibly flesh-eating nanobots which is a new terror I’ve recently added to my collection… But my opinion about AI, as...
Reading time: 1.00 238 words Read this email in your browser Hey Reader, I love it when a piece of tangible evidence arrives to support something I know and feel to be true. Like — nobody is going to remember any of your LinkedIn posts or Instagram posts or Tweets in 10 years. Sorry, they’re not. Because social media is designed to be hooky, addictive, and instantly forgettable, like cheap candy. But a long-form piece of writing or media? That, they might remember. On Friday, during my...