I use the app TimeHop every morning to browse every picture I’ve taken and tweet I’ve made on that date each year in the past. But my not-so-secret secret about my newsletter (and all my social media posting) is that it’s not about you, it’s about me.Īs I’ve written before, nearly all my publicly posted content is for my own consumption later. They’re love letters to your future selfĪs I mentioned previously, the newsletter is a fantastic way to stay connected with people. A monthly newsletter forces you to flex that muscle regularly, resulting in a better ability to think deeply in all aspects of life. I’ll have the urge to share something, and then have to do the work required to figure out why I have that urge. Writing a newsletter is almost meditative, in that sense. There’s a skill required to explore and process one’s own thoughts. It seems counterintuitive - you’d think that if I want to share something then I must know why - but that’s not always the case. There’s always a reason why I choose to share something, and I work to communicate that in the newsletter.īut that why is not always obvious to me, if you can believe that. My newsletter is more than just a collection of links. Start writing and you’ll quickly discover which parts of a topic you don’t know as well as you thought you did. Writing helps pinpoint the exact weaknesses in your understanding of a concept. Our conversations often have a deeper sense of intimacy that wouldn’t exist if there had been zero contact in-between our last meetings.Ī newsletter definitely should not completely replace the effort you put into maintaining friendships, but it’s a fantastic compliment to the phone calls, text messages, and activities required to stay in touch. I love connecting with friends that read my newsletter and hearing which topics stuck out in their minds. It puts you directly in the inbox of people you like, serving as the potential spark of a new conversation. I’ve found, however, that a monthly newsletter is a great way to stay in touch with people. And if that’s one-sided for long enough, like it was for oblivious me, it eventually stops.
But that also meant, sadly, that I was at the mercy of others 1) organizing plans and 2) inviting me. The energetic arithmetic just didn’t make sense. Quiet nights at home leave me feeling refreshed, not isolated.īeing an introvert, I enjoy being invited to events, but it never really crossed my mind to host an event. That’s why I consider myself an introvert - not because I avoid social activities but because they take energy to enjoy, rather than giving me energy. I enjoy socializing, but after a big party or group event I need some time to myself to recharge. That is probably super obvious to most people, but for some reason it never even crossed my mind. The lesson I’ve learned, now that I’m in my thirties, is that holding onto friendships takes dedicated work. Likewise, nearly a decade went by after graduation where I had a good amount of friends, nearly all of whom I’m not in contact with anymore. I’m only really in touch with one single person from my high school (not even my year), and not a single soul from college, despite being fairly social throughout both. Most of my life, I’ve been notoriously bad at remaining connected with people. It’s a great way to stay in touch with people Maybe it’ll encourage you to launch your own newsletter (or something similar). It’s been almost two years of monthly output now, so I wanted to take this occasion to reveal some of my motivations. There are many reasons I sent that first email, and even more that drive me to craft a new newsletter each month. If I’m not driven by money, nor am I focused on growing the size of my list, then what keeps me creating? There are no sponsorships or even ways to tip me or otherwise give me money (aside from my shop, which exists largely as a joke). If you’ve read my newsletter, you know I’m not trying to sell anything. I added emails of friends that I had collected over the years, and I certainly had a healthy start.īut honestly, the size of my list is meaningless to me. But for me, it was a long time coming.īy then, I already had a fairly sizable email list (~500 people) from my days running my old blog Novice No Longer. For those on the receiving end, that first newsletter may have seemed out-of-the-blue. I started publishing my newsletter The Dann Chronicles in October of 2020.
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