Read This If You Think You Should Read This
So, you may have noticed that I started writing my subject lines a little differently.
For the past few years, it's been clickbaity headline after clickbaity headline.
You know what I'm talking about.
Headlines like:
"One Bulletproof Way To Change Your Life," and "The 5 Little Known Things That Will Make You 150% More Productive," and "Do This Surprisingly Simple Daily Habit To Improve Your Mindset."
I wrote them every day for a year and I still wonder if that helped me gain attention or pushed away readers who would like what I actually had to say.
Either way, I've been focusing on a more simple approach.
I'm not sure it's helping me gain more readers yet, but I do know that it neither adds nor takes away anything from the rest of the content I'm writing.
So, why?
Because I feel better about it.
Yep. That's the big realization.
I feel more straightforward and more honest--and that's been the promise the whole time, right?
I promised simple, to-the-point, no fancy-pants, quickly digestible, mission-critical, delicious, family-friendly, actionable, knowledge-nuggets?
These headlines feel even more stripped down. So, that's what I'm doing.
So, I'll be looking at open rates and read through rates to see what kind of actual, measurable impact this small, seemingly insignificant change has made, but as of right now, it feels like the right thing to do.
How does that relate to you?
Of course, I want to hear your feedback about this, but more importantly, I want to model a behavior for you.
Takeaways:
Change is good if it's good.
If the change you made achieves a desirable result (not necessarily the specific result you initially desired), then it's probably good. Make sure you are on the lookout for unintended consequences, too.
Simpler is usually harder but better.
I write a 7th-grade reading level. Why? The average reading level in America is a 7th-grade reading level. It also helps those above that average get to the point faster and comprehend more. No, I'm not dumbing it down. I'm meeting people where they are.
Measure what matters.
My message won't matter if it doesn't get clicked, opened, and read. My message also won't matter if it falls into the wrong ears. Discerning open rates and audience is the front portion of my battle. Understanding the impact is harder to measure, but also worthwhile. Likes, hearts, and thumbs-ups can be useful in understanding audience attention, but it will only serve your vanity if you don't follow them to the behaviors of the people you are trying to impact. This is also why I include a quick, actionable note in each post.
2 Minute Action
What's something you've been doing for a while but haven't seen much change in? It's probably something important but not urgent, like "fitness" or "writing that novel."
What are your current excuses/reasons for not doing it?
Go ahead, jot them down.
I'll give you a hint, here. No one has the time, money, or the team to make it happen--so you can't let those slow you down.
If you were diagnosed with some terrible disease, you would stop other things and focus on healing. Why? Because it's a priority. Suddenly, things became important AND urgent.
If you're like me, you want to do all the things.
You want to have a huge impact in 20 different disciplines, catch up with your friends and family, be an informed citizen, speak 7 or 8 languages, and play 13 different instruments.
Since you can't do everything, it's going to be up to you to decide what to prioritize. It's going to be up to you to decide what is important AND urgent.
As Derek Sivers says: "hell yes!" or "no!"
Changing/modifying a routine, simplifying/improving an existing routine, and measuring the results are some of the ways to get there.
You can start on one of those things, today.
And I know you can start in 2 minutes or less.
All I did was start writing different headlines.
Daily 1% improvement accumulates into a 100% improvement every 70 days.
The Strange Lesson My Whiteboard Taught Me
I walked into my office today and saw some brainstorming I had done over a week ago.It was all over my whiteboard.
It was a map that helped me see some of the dependencies and workflows in my team—visibility here is critical for making improvements.
But then I realized that if I wiped it away to make room for the new problem I needed to solve right then, I would lose a lot of my progress.Sure I can take a photo, but those so easily get tucked away into the bottomless digital pile.It’s so easy to do some of the work without doing all of it. If you don’t do all of it, it’s easy to waste all the work you did do.
And that’s the lesson.
You will develop an incredible amount of work waste unless you’re careful not to do some of the work without doing all of it.You will move faster if your work progress is documented or if a decision is made at the end of the time you’ve set aside to work.
2 Minute Action
Get all of your “to-dos” into a single pile. Pull them all in from everywhere you keep them.Your notepad. Your inbox. Your sticky notes.Get them all in a list and prioritize them. Each one must fight for its life to stay on the list.You are much less likely to have work waste when you have a single place to store tasks and review projects.Nothing gets lost.The work you’ve done so far gets recorded in the same place as everything’s else.
The Best Way To Prioritize Tasks
I learned this from the Eisenhower Decision Matrix and I've used it in many settings.
Is it important?Is it urgent?Will it take 2 minutes or less?Then do it now.
2 Minute Action:
Line up your tasks for today.
- If a task is important and urgent, give it a [1].
- If it's important but not urgent, give it a [2].
- If it's not important but it's urgent, give it a [3].
- If it's neither important nor urgent, give it a [4].
If it takes 2 minutes or less to do any of these tasks, put a * in front of it.Do all the *[1]s first.