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.
I set a big goal for 2025 — something I’ve never set in the six years I’ve run my business.
My big goal isn’t around revenue.
It isn’t about growth.
It isn’t about launching new products.
My goal? I want to be able to ski or play golf 50 times in 2025.
To me, success isn’t about building the biggest, most profitable business. It’s about making something that brings in the revenue I need, has the impact I want, and gives me the time to do the things I love.
If I can run a business that does all three, then I must be doing something right.
Here’s to a lot more days on the mountain in 2025 — and on the links this summer.
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That’s me on the mountain at Deer Valley a few weeks ago. If you see a tall guy in a loud jacket skiing around Park City, it might be me!
I’ve found that it’s easier to do just about anything if you’ve got a little momentum behind you. It’s easier to get yourself to work out if you’ve done it the day before. It’s easier to make time to write if you’ve written the day before. I could go on, but you get the idea.
But it’s hard to build that repetition when you’ve got a child to take care of. I’m fascinated by the stories from people who say, for instance, that they wake up super early to squeeze in a workout before their kids get up. I love that idea, and I’m inspired by their work ethic — but I’ve found that my son has a funny habit:
If I try to get up early, he’ll somehow get up earlier.
I know that if I try to create new routines in the new year, they’ll get easily interrupted. So as I think about the year ahead, one thing I’m interested in is the idea of building good habits without building a corresponding routine. For instance: I want to do more writing, and I think I can make a few hours every week to write. But instead of trying to build a routine around it — i.e. every morning, after breakfast, I promise to spend an hour writing before checking my email and getting to other work tasks — my goal is to make space for the habit when I can. Maybe that means I have 15 minutes to write one day, and an hour the next, and no time the day after. That’s OK! The bigger thing is the intention — that I want to make writing a priority.
I don’t believe, at least at this moment in my life, that I can build a consistent routine around these habits the way that I could five or ten years ago. The question is: Can I still build the habit without the routine?
We’ll see how things go in the new year.
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That’s a lovely image, taken by Yusuf Evli for Unsplash, of a black Mercedes typewriter set against a brown desk, with a black lamp shining a light over it. It seems like a lovely place to write. (Mine is a windowless room in our basemen. Not quite as picturesque, but it gets the job done!)
One little thing that’s worked for me when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions: Starting just a little bit early.
I used to do the thing that everyone does: I picked a resolution or two at the end of the year, started in January, and completely quit on it by the end of the month.
But what I discovered works a little better for me is if I start now — not in January.
Let’s say the resolution is to work out more in the new year. (In this case, this is something I genuinely want to do next year!) I know that if I try to go from 0 to 60 in January, it probably won’t stick. I need a little time to warm up to the new habit.
So instead, I’ll start now — in December. I’ll put a few workout classes on my calendar. I’ll make sure to make time during the month to use that stationary bike. And by January, I’ll already have started to slowly build that habit.
Once you’ve gotten the ball rolling, it’s so much easier to keep it moving when January comes around.
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That is 100% not me on an exercise bike, but it is a lovely black-and-white photo of someone biking from Josh Nuttall for Unsplash.
I ask myself this a few times a quarter when projects start to pile up: I’ve got a lots of things to tackle. Where should I start?
And the truth is: You can start anywhere — as long as you start.
I know I can find myself paralyzed by all those choices. Instead of getting stuff done, I end up worrying about all the stuff I have to get done. (And then I find myself with a lot less time to actually do the things I need to do!)
Don’t worry about finding the perfect starting place. The end result is far more important than where you start.
Start somewhere, and go from there.
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That’s a photo of an American Airlines jet taking off, with pink flowers blurred in the foreground and the moon behind. It was taken by Sachin Amjhad for Unsplash.
I read this line in a New Yorker article, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
There have been so many times when I’ve showed up for something without knowing exactly what I might get out it. I didn’t want to miss out on something, even if I wasn’t sure what it was! When you show up, you don’t always stumble into something good — but sometimes, you do. (Case in point: My MLK Day story.)
Point is: There are certain opportunities that only come along when you take the time to show up. Don’t miss the opportunity to miss an opportunity. Just show up and see what presents itself.
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That’s a photo of a departures board with flights from Singapore’s airport to destinations around Asia. It seemed as appropriate a photo for the “show up” message as any. It was taken by Benjamin Wong for Unsplash.
It’s been a busy week. We went to a wedding last weekend and are going to another in 48 hours. I’ve got some new clients starting this month, a few talks coming up, and generally just a lot of work happening. It’s a ton for a small business like mine — and of course, having a 1-year-old at home adds a whole lot to your plate.
So I really could’ve done without coming home on Sunday night to find that the garage door opener wasn’t working. it was just one thing too much for me to handle — the classic straw that broke the camel’s back.
I got myself twisted in knots for a few minutes about the garage door opener. I procrastinated for a day and got myself more angry about it. Really? Now this? And then I stopped spinning my wheels and decided to fix just the one thing.
I went to YouTube (bless you, YouTube), and found a tutorial. Two minutes later, I’d fixed the garage door. (Turns out it was a super simple fix. I literally just had to push a button.)
I still have a mountain of work to do. But just getting that one tiny task completed felt like a victory. I did this one thing — I can do the rest.
I didn’t need to do it all. I just needed to take care of that one thing.
Last night, we went down to Sundance to see a few singer-songwriters from Nashville — Trannie Anderson, Josh Jenkins, and Matt Jenkins — perform on stage as part of a series of concerts with Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe. Together, the three of them have written songs played by some of the biggest artists in country music: Lainey Wilson, Walker Hayes, Keith Urban.
But as they told stories about their work, one thing came up over and over again: It takes an awful lot of writing songs just to get one song on an album. The Jenkins brothers told a story about writing a song for an artist, who passed on it — before deciding to record it several years later. Anderson told a story about working a job as a dog walker for a famous country musician who ended up recording one of her songs almost a decade later. All of the artists on stage said that they might have to write a 100 or more songs just get one that’s worthy of being recorded. (And there’s still no guarantee that the song will end up on an album!)
Sure, there are overnight success stories out there, but to me, the night was a reminder that it usually takes a lot of work, a lot of patience, and a lot of rejection to get to where you want to go.
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I took that photo during the show. The stage at Sundance is absolutely spectacular — it’s built into the hill, with just a little backlight against the dark night sky. If you get a chance to go there for a concert, you should.
I have all sorts of to-do lists. I’ve got a list of ideas — “somedays,” I call them — that I want to try. I’ve got notes written down on yellow legal pads and in various Google Docs. I know I won’t act on many of these ideas.
I never worry about running out of ideas, but I know that sometimes, I forget about a really good idea. So it’s helpful to keep coming back to these lists to look through things. What am I still excited about? What could I work on as part of another project? Often, I find a chestnut in one of these docs — but I have to make sure to make time to review and give each of the ideas some thought. I don’t want to let anything slip through the cracks.
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That photo of a small notepad and wooden pencil on top of a wood table, was taken by Michaela St for Unsplash.
On a call today, a client asked me an interesting question. “A few people unsubscribe every time we send an email,” they said. “Is that normal, or is that something that happens just to us?”
The good news, I told them, is that it happens to everyone. I used to write a newsletter called This Week in Cats, which had a 60%+ open rate — at a time in which being above 40% was rare — and we saw unsubscribes every week. (I still have no idea what those readers thought they were getting into.) If that newsletter lost readers every week, then every newsletter will lose readers.
But the bigger thing: I’m glad they had the courage to ask the question. Building something new can be a lonely business. It takes guts to be willing to ask: Is this normal? Or am I going through something that nobody else goes through?
Be brave enough to ask. You might find that what you’re going through is a lot more common than you think.
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That’s a photo of an early edition of This Week in Cats, featuring that week’s cat of the week — a cat, with a white belly and brown and black striped fur, sitting upright and looking surprisingly sad.
