I’m Dan Oshinsky, and I run Inbox Collective, an email consultancy. I'm here to share what I've learned about doing great work and building amazing teams.
This was one of those weeks where it felt like everything happened. I launched a new product. I held a webinar. I talked with 15 different clients. I sent a thousand emails (give or take). I helped a ton of clients with end-of-the-year projects.
And then Ben got sick, and so did I.
There was a moment on Friday afternoon when I thought about taking on a bit more work. I had a lot more stuff to do. But Ben was down for a nap.
So I took a nap, too.
You can’t operate on empty. You have to make time for yourself. Take a week. Exercise. Cook yourself dinner. Read a book. Go to bed at a reasonable hour.
Do literally anything other than work.
Yes, you’re busy. We all are. But the work isn’t going to be very good if the tank is empty.
I’m launching a new paid product for my readers this week, and I don’t know how it’ll go. We might sell a lot of the product, and we might not sell much. (We’ll sell something, I hope!)
All I can really control is the process. I’m proud of the work that’s gone into building this product. We’re thinking about this product in a smart way, I think. We’ve asked lots of questions; we’ve reached out to lots of people for feedback. The product itself is pretty darn good.
What I love, though, is this moment right before the product goes out into the world. I’ve worked hard on it and made it better and better. The work that went into it was really good. And even though I worked hard it on, I don’t really know how readers will react until I put it in front of them.
I wish I had more control over what happens next, but I don’t. (The marketing plan is good, but it’s just a plan!) I’ll announce the product this week, and whatever happens, I’ll learn from it. If we sell a lot, if we don’t — I’ll learn more that’ll inform whatever I make next.
We just finished watching the second season of “Nobody Wants This.” The first season was great, and I didn’t think the second season quite lived up to the first. I love the cast, and there were a lot of great moments. So what was missing from season two?
To me, the first season worked because the story arc was built off of a big question: Can these two characters (played by Kristen Bell and Adam Brody) make it? It worked as a hook and kept us interested throughout the season. I wanted to know how they’d answer that question.
But the second season’s question (“Will Kristen Bell’s character convert to Judaism?”) didn’t resonate with me in the same way — I just didn’t really care either way — and it affected the rest of the season. Without the big arc, it’s tough to stay invested in a show in the long run.
Had they been asking a different question, my reaction to the season is probably a lot different. (Weirdly, rewatching the trailer, I think they got the big question right there! It just didn’t quite come through in the actual show.)
I see versions of this in my work. I’ll talk with people who’ve built what looks to be a great newsletter — the design is good, they’ve put a lot of work into the content — but they’re not asking the right question. They don’t really understand what their audience wants — or maybe even who their audience is — and as a result, the newsletter doesn’t have clear value.
So when something falls flat, I try to steer back to those big questions. Who is this for? What do we do to serve them? And how do we clearly explain this value to them?
Getting back to those answers can help get the work back on track.
I’m 38 years old, and I wonder if I’m doing enough.
There was this video I saw this fall, taken a few blocks from where I live, on a road I drive every day. Two plainclothes federal officers had pulled over a man in a pickup truck. The doors to the truck were open. The officers were on either side of the man, pulling on both arms in different directions. They dragged him from the car into an unmarked van. A man, disappearing from a public street.
And then there was a story in the local newspaper about student lunches here in the state of Utah. Thousands of students in this state cannot afford to pay for school lunch, and when they cannot pay, they go into debt. At some schools, students with lunch debt are being denied a hot meal. This, in a state that boasts about being one of the most family-friendly in the nation.
I watched the video of that man, and read the story about those students, and wondered: When did we decide to treat others this way?
There are so many days when it feels like I’m cosplaying a version of normal. I take my son to day care. I talk with clients. I like my job. We bike to the playground under blue skies. We hike on a trail behind our house. We spend nights looking up at the moon. (My son is obsessed with the moon lately.) The other day, we saw a moose sitting in our backyard. A moose! Just outside our back door! There are days when being here feels like living in a snow globe — perfect, and untouched by the outside world.
And then I read the news, and the headlines drag me back to life outside this bubble.
What gives me hope is seeing others take action. There are amazing organizations in my community doing things to create change. The Wasatch Immigration Project provides legal services, often for free, to immigrants in our community. The Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation team is working to eliminate lunch debt for students in this state. And these organizations haven’t been around forever; one was founded in 2023, and the other in 2024. That’s a reminder that it’s not too late to get involved.
Maybe you can volunteer. Maybe you can give money. Maybe you can organize. Maybe you can run for something.
I want to do more, too.
Our despair should not keep us from action. I keep reminding myself: Everyone needs to do something; whatever you can do is enough.
Over the past year, there are certain things I’ve come to believe hold true. I know that my beliefs will continue to change. I know that I will change.
But here, at 38, is what I believe:
Create a birthday and anniversary calendar, and text your friends on those dates. Add their kids to the calendar, too. It matters more than you know.
Forget about yoga or long baths or walks in the woods. At this age, with a kid and a job that will overwhelm me if I let it, getting good at saying “no” is how I practice self-care.
When our kid gets sick or everything in our lives starts to pile up, my wife will look at me and ask, “Are we in parenting bankruptcy?” That’s when you realize that you can’t take on one more thing, and your only goal is to make it until Friday. You’re not getting work done or finishing that project. You just need to make it to the weekend. Once you’ve declared parenting bankruptcy, you’re free to do as little work as is necessary, and legally allowed to order as much takeout as you want, for the rest of the week.
On a related note: When you’re traveling solo with a kid, you can declare Sky Law as soon as you hit the airport curb. There are no rules with Sky Law, except this: Do what you need to do to make it to the destination. If your kid wants to eat a family-sized box of Cheez-Its and watch 374 consecutive episodes of “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” then Sky Law commands you to do so.
Forget about potty training. I think we’ll throw a party the day my kid learns how to blow his nose.
Every couple needs to know the price point at which it’s OK to make a frivolous purchase at Costco. For us, it’s $40. Anything below that isn’t worth fighting over. (The set of stuffed yetis that sit in our living room cost $38, and it’s the best $38 we’ve ever spent.)
I think my greatest aspiration in life is to live in a home with an outdoor shower. If that sounds ridiculous, well: Take an outdoor shower in the summertime. You’ll understand.
Keep thinking about where you invest your time, your money, your energy, your love. You only have so much to give. Put it in the places that matter most.
The successes and failures you have at your job don’t mean that you are a success or a failure. They’re just stuff that happens at your job.
Set a “fun” goal next year. For me, 2025 was about spending 50 days playing golf or skiing. (I made it to 47.) Did it get me in shape or make money for the business or open new doors for me? Absolutely not. But what’s the point of living in a fun place if you don’t get to enjoy it?
If you want to start a conversation with any parent, anywhere in the world, all you need is one question: “How long did it take you to realize that Bluey was a girl?”
Tip the housekeepers at your hotel. They do a hard (and largely invisible) job. They deserve your generosity.
The internet was amazing — until it wasn’t. Social media was amazing — until it wasn’t. Artificial intelligence, right now, is amazing. I might not know what happens next, but I do know how things come in threes.
And finally: One of the hardest things to do is to keep going when everything is changing around you. I have to remind myself, almost daily: The good, the bad, the-between — it doesn’t last. These are just moments and phases. It won’t be this way forever. Do your best to keep moving forward. Even baby steps are steps are in the right direction.
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That holiday card outtake at top was taken by photographer Lexi Rae.If you do happen to be in the market for family photos here in Utah, she’s fantastic.
A friend asked me the other day how, as a solo operator, I plan for the year ahead. The truth is: I have to keep things simple. I love to overthink stuff — and if I give myself the chance to overthink things, I will!
So instead, right around this time of year, I like to do two things.
The first is to figure out the big bets I want to place for next year. I have three big things in the works for next year for Inbox Collective that I’m building my 2026 around. I’d love to do more than that, but if I do all three things, I’ll be very, very happy.
The second is to set up quarterly reviews. This is where I look back at the work I’ve done. It’s good to reflect on what I’ve been working on, but it’s also important to see if there’s anything I’m doing that I need to stop. If I do, I’ll make the change right away. There’s no reason to keep doing something that isn’t working.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and stop doing something that takes up a lot of time — and in the process, I manage to free up time for some smaller projects. I’ll figure that out as I go. But for now, the main thing is to figure out the big stuff and then get out of my own way so I can actually do the work.
My son and I were driving to school the other day, and he started to say his goodbyes as we pulled out of the driveway. He said goodbye to the house, goodbye to our neighbor’s dog. And then, spotting something by our front door: “Goodbye, pumpkins! I love you! Have a good day!”
He is such a sweet, wonderful kid, and I’m so glad I wasn’t too busy fiddling with my phone to miss it.
I find that he is full of amazing little moments lately. Every week, he does something I’ve never seen before.
The challenge, of course, is that we spend a lot of time together, and yes, toddler time can be dull. I try to put my phone away as much as I can, but I’m certainly guilty of looking at it while he’s there, or of reading a book or generally letting my mind wander while we’re together at home.
But I try to be present as much as I can, because every once in a while, my son says goodbye to the pumpkins, and it’s the cutest thing he’s done in his entire life.
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Those are our pumpkins, which I really do need to take to the recycling center to compost. They’re getting a bit gnarly after a few weeks outside!
I just finished the book, “Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane!” — it’s an oral history of the movie “Airplane!” I didn’t know much about the three guys behind the movie: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. They were friends who grew up in Wisconsin together. They started a sketch comedy show in Madison, then moved the entire thing to Los Angeles. From there, they made their first movie, “Kentucky Fried Movie,” before eventually hitting it big with “Airplane!”
But throughout the book, they shared that they had a few ideas that might have been huge:
When we still thought of ourselves as a TV sketch group, we had the idea of doing a national show with comedy sketches and musical acts. It was essentially the idea for “Saturday Night Live.” We took it to our William Morris agent, and she said, “Nah, that’s not a good idea.”
Stupid — not her, us for listening.
It’s a nice reminder that you should listen to your gut. Like with “Kentucky Fried Movie.” They wanted to film a teaser of the movie — 10 minutes of sketches that they could show to studios. They couldn’t get someone else to fund the thing, so they put up the money to film it themselves. That got them the funding for the movie, which went on to make more than $7 million at the box office.
Some ideas are a little ahead of their time. If you believe in it, go for it.
I put these sticky notes by my desk earlier this year. It’s cheesy, but they say: “Where do you invest your…”, and there are three things listed:
• Time • Money • Love
And anytime I start to get sucked a little too far into my work, I think about where I’m making those investments. Maybe I need to go volunteer. Maybe I need to turn down that next project to make time for the family. Heck, maybe I just need to get outside.
But it always reminds me that I’m more than just my work.
About a decade ago, I made a commitment to start writing more on danoshinsky.com. It was a small thing — the goal, at first, was just to have a place to write. I was in a job at the time that involved a lot of technical writing (subject lines, captions, stuff for SEO), but I wanted a place where I could do my own thing and share what I was learning.
So I made a commitment to write once a week.
And one of things you learn when you start writing once a week is that some posts are good, some are great, and some are lousy.
But you also learn: By taking more swings, you have more chances for success.
Let’s lean into the baseball analogy here. Let’s say I hit .300 on my posts — three out of every 10 posts is something I’m super proud of. More swings means more opportunities for success.
A hit rate of .300 on 12 posts means I’d have four hit posts a year.
But by writing weekly, I’ve got 52 posts — which means a hit rate of 17 posts.
Could I go further? Maybe I could up my outage of posts. If I somehow wrote 365 posts — and I feel dizzy just thinking about writing that much — I’d have 109 hits in a year. (Though honestly, if I wrote that much, I wonder if my hit rate would naturally go down. More output doesn’t mean I’d be consistent with the quality of my writing.)
But the point is: It’s a good thing to take more swings. Not everything is a hit, and that’s OK. But every time I take a swing, I’ve got a chance to do something great.
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I took that photo at a San Antonio Missions minor league baseball game back in May 2010. The pitcher is Simon Castro, who went on to pitch parts of three seasons in the majors with the Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, and Oakland Athletics.
One of my favorite things to do after one of my teams loses is to check the message boards or comments where fans of that team post.
After a win, fans are always in a good mood. Their team won, the team’s players are heroes. It’s just one win — but hey, this probably means we’re going to win it all!
But after a win, everyone’s on their worst behavior. The quarterback can’t win the big one! The point guard needs to be benched! The pitcher should be cut!
It’s an odd tradition, I admit. Why read the comments after losses? But I like to do it as a reminder: We’re never as good as we are on our best days, and never as bad as we are on our worst days.
And today? It was just one day.
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That photo of a hockey game, featuring Denver University and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, comes via photographer Logan Weaver.
