Seriously, Just Use SaneBox Already

It’s true – email newsletters are great. But when you subscribe to a few, well, it can be a bit overwhelming. Let me tell you about one of my favorite services I pay for and could not live without. It’s called SaneBox.

It works by making some new folders in your email account, like SaneNews and SaneBulk. So when you get that email receipt that coffee shop that uses Square, you drag that email into SaneBulk. Now the next time you go to the coffee shop, that email will automatically go into SaneBulk.

That means when you pull out your phone, or log into your email after your lunch break, you won’t see that email in your inbox because – face it – it’s not urgent It’s not inbox worthy!

Maybe you’re a writer and you get a zillion press releases a day. Well, you can start dragging them into your SaneLater folder, and the next time you get an email from them, it won’t sit in your inbox.

The important emails, well, you leave them in your inbox. And SaneBox will always leave them there. So then, after a week or so of using SaneBox, when you get a notification on your phone, or a ding on your laptop, you’ll know there’s actually something important in your inbox.

I’ve been through two pretty major life events in the last year, and having Sanebox was wonderful. In this GIG ECONOMY world I still had to check email on occasion, but at least when I saw a notification and decided to check email I knew it wasn’t going to be some stupid 10% off offer from a website that I visited three weeks ago.

And all those newsletters I subscribe to? I drag them all into my SaneLater folder to read, you know, later.

Seriously, give SaneBox a shot. I can’t recommend it enough.

Just Get Started

One of my favorite podcasts is Friendshipping! In their latest episode (listen here on Overcast) they talk about starting creative projects, and wowzers, it’s gold.

I started Skull Toaster back in 2011, on Twitter. Here we are seven years later and Twitter is a bit different these days. So now I’m starting my second Skull Toaster podcast. It’s like an audiobooks version of the Skull Toaster metal trivia I post on Twitter, but without each question being surrounded by nazis and news of school shootings.

Depressing I know, but that’s Twitter these days.

The first Skull Toaster audio program was the Metal Minute podcast. We did 115 episodes, but I decided to end it. Is it a failure? Nah. I learned from the process; the week in and week out of recording, promoting, and publishing a quirky, regularly published podcast. But it wasn’t growing, so we brought it to a close.

So now in 2018 I’m starting a new podcast. I’m on episode #3 and I have no idea if it’ll be a success. I’ve been talking about doing a podcast like this for years (I remember a coffee shop conversation with a Dan Diemer about this, back in 2015 or so), and I could have waited to start it better, or buy a better microphone, or whatever… but nope. It’s out. Episode #10 is gonna be better than episode #1. At least I hope so.

This doesn’t even have to be about podcasts. They can be about your newsletter. Your first tour. A new painting. But you just have to make it, then keep making it.

Tiny Experts of Millions of Things

How many articles do you read in a day? The occasioanl click or two per hour, and maybe you don’t finish the whole piece, but just enough to get the point. Let’s say you do that a dozen times a day. Easy, right? And let’s say you maybe spend about two minutes each time per article. That’s quick.

But thats already 24 minutes of your day.

What about when you add video into the mix? We easily watch three videos per day, and maybe maybe 2 minutes each? I mean, on average. Cool?

That’s 6 minutes of video per day, and I bet that’s on the low end.

Can we agree that we spend at least 30 minutes per day reading / viewing / skimming things? And that these are mostly micro bursts of taking things in? I’m not talking that 15 minute documentary where you learn something, or the 1000 word article that leaves you in tears. Nope. Just the sort of “content marketing” and “re-written news” that we practicaly trip over and consume every day.

If we figure 30 minutes per day, that’s 3.5 hours a week. Which is 14 hours per month. Almost a full day of awake time in a typical day.

And at 14 hours per month, that’s 168 hours per year, or 7 days of reading and watching.

Seven full days per year we’re staring at our phones, scrolling, squinting, skipping ads / clicking Reader mode, thumbing. Chances are you’re reading this on your mobile device right now.

I KNOW it’s just a minute here, a minute there. Don’t be such a kill joy, Seth! But dammit, this ain’t natural. Multi-tasking is a myth, but multi-consuming can’t be real either.

Have you tried listening to a podcast while scrolling through Twitter, then clicking a story, and trying to read it. How – HOW – do we even think this is normal?

I understand when a friend I’m having lunch with has to reply to work email (GIG ECONOMY, YAY), but please don’t interuppt our catching up with your catching up with your Instagram feed.

I clicked Twitter just now, and was able to take in all this:

That’s just tonight. That’s the last 15 minutes, maybe. But it’s happening around the clock. There are important stories to read, articles that are informative, music being released in different time zones, funny videos being uploads (how many hours of content are posted every morning from the late night shows), it goes on, and on, and on, and on…

And right now I’m adding to it. But I’m hoping to be like some messenger from The Matrix or something, typing on your screen in the middle of the night. “Knock, knock, Neo…”

You don’t even need to delete social media and throw your computer down a well. You just need to do your online work and get the hell away. Your best ideas will come when you’re out on a walk or having a conversation with a friend, not scrolling endlessly through some design inspiration site.

I don’t mean that the internet is bad, but the continual flood of infomration that we keep ramming into our brain can’t be healthy.

While I’m sure ‘Jared Kushner’s many, many scandals, explained‘ is a well done article, does our survival rely upon that information? Will it give us information that we can use to debate the Trump supporters in our life?

Great.

What about the 20 other Trump topics that were brought up today? Can we read those 25 articles, three explainer videos, four wrap-up hot takes from the late-night hosts, and listen to the four daily political podcasts and get their take on everything?

Then we do it again tomorrow? Nay, do it again this evening? When some other bat-shit crazy thing hits the fan?

Breaking up our attention for these hundreds and thousands of tiny interruptions over the course of weeks and months and years might make us tiny experts at a million things, but I believe it’s keeping us from deeper thinking and  bigger conversations with important people already in our life.