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.
It’s been a decade since I graduated from college. I thought that when I graduated — after all those years in school — that the learning would stop there.
Turns out, that was just the start.
As you go through your career, you’re always going to be working to learn new things, and discovering new ways to learn them. You’ll find that you can:
If you’re the bride or groom at a wedding — or if you’re just the host of a big party — here’s something I’ve learned: You have to make time to eat.
Sure, you spent a lot of money on the food at your party. You did a tasting. You thought carefully about what you wanted to serve. You were really excited to actually eat that one dish on the big day!
And then the big day comes, and you don’t eat. It’s your party, which means that every guest knows you, and every guest wants to come over and chat. It doesn’t leave you much time to actually eat.
The secret is: You have to make time to eat. You need to carve out time for it, separate from the party. (On our wedding day, Sally and I took 20 minutes after our ceremony to go into a private room to eat dinner, just the two of us. It was one of the best decisions we made all weekend.)
The same thing holds true for taking a managerial role at a company. There are going to be big, ambitious projects you want to take on — that you suddenly won’t have time for. You’ll have 1-on-1s, stand-ups, big meetings, calls, etc. Your time at work becomes your team’s time. Your week will be filled with meetings, and the stuff you want to do will end up getting pushed off to another day.
The challenge is figuring out how you want to make time for yourself and for the things you care about. At Stry.us, I made the mornings my time — anything between 6 and 9 was my time to write, plan out strategy, or work out. I’ve seen co-workers carve out big chunks of their week, adding two-hour blocks on their calendar where meetings can’t be scheduled and work can get done. Or maybe you want to limit your meetings to certain days — no 1-on-1s, let’s say, on Mondays, so you can get ahead on your tasks and projects for the week ahead.
Whatever you do, just remember: You have to make time for these things. Don’t be the person who didn’t get to enjoy the ice cream sundae bar at their own wedding — and don’t be the manager who never gets to work on their favorite projects because they couldn’t find a spare moment for it.
When we saw her, she talked a little about what she learned from the book. She said, and I’m paraphrasing here: I’ve been to a lot of towns across this country. I know our country is divided. But the opposite of division isn’t unity — it’s collaboration.
Dar was talking about political division in this country, but I’ve been thinking a lot about that quote in the context of the modern workplace. So many offices seek to present a united front — a “we’re all on the same page” mentality. But it’s not enough to know what else other teams are working on. The best work comes from getting incredibly smart people in the same room, asking great questions, and looking to discover new things from one another. Or, as Dar once put it: “Where does magic come from? / I think magic’s in the learning.”
That’s where the best stuff happens: When teams aren’t just working in parallel, but start working together. That’s where you go beyond being aligned on goals, and start building something truly special.
Go ahead and write that memo. Make that deck. Put together an ambitious plan, with lots of specific goals, and multiple ways to measure success.
But don’t lose sight of the ultimate mission. So many big plans get derailed because teams don’t know what they’re actually trying to achieve. Your organization may exist to inform or serve your community, or to better connect groups of people, or to make life simpler for your users. Think about your office for a moment: What’s your larger purpose? It sounds cheesy, but every organization should have a mission statement, and everything you do should be in service of that mission.
Now, individual teams are going to to have their own objectives, and will be using several different metrics to measure up against those goals. (At a news organization, like where I work, the editorial, sales, and HR teams all have very different goals, and we’re setting new goals a few times per year.) But where organizations get in trouble is when their teams lose sight of that overarching mission. Teams often make decisions — taking on a new opportunity to make a bit more money, or to add a few more users, or to partner with a third party — that ultimately compromises their ability to serve that larger mission.
Just remember: The plan can be complicated, the way you measure it may complex, and the goals of individual teams may be ambitious. But everything you do needs to be service of that ultimate mission.
What are you good at? Think about it for a moment. What skills do you bring to the table? What are your best qualities or habits?
Then think about your team at work. What is your team best at? What are your collective strengths?
Lastly, think about your entire workplace. What is your organization great at? What do you do well?
Give yourself a second, and really think about your strengths.
Now think about your weaknesses. Think about yourself, your team, and your organization. What do you do poorly? What do you need to improve on?
Now let’s consider one more thing: If you had an opportunity to improve one of these things — to double down on your strengths, or to better your weaknesses — which would you choose?
Many would choose to improve their weaknesses. That’s natural. People tend to focus on their own faults — I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not talented enough — and would love to have the chance to improve.
But my advice would be to do just the opposite: Do more of the things you already do uniquely well. Take the things you’re good at and truly master them.
Imagine for a second that you’re a Major League Baseball pitcher, pitching for a National League team. In the NL, pitchers have to hit, too, and even the best-hitting pitchers are, by any other standard, bad hitters. (Madison Bumgartner, one of the best-hitting pitchers ever, has a career .183 batting average.) Let’s say it’s the start of the offseason. You’ve got a few months to improve as a baseball player before the new season rolls around. So what would you do: Work on your hitting, and try to become a passable (but still poor) hitter? Or would you work on adding new pitches and becoming a dominant pitcher? The answer is easy: You’d work on your pitching. Baseball teams don’t need good-hitting pitchers — they need great-pitching pitchers.
It’s rare to find a true jack-of-all-trades. Most people specialize in just a few things — and that’s OK!
I started thinking about all of this a few weeks ago, when I was talking with a group of news organizations. Many of them were thinking about launching new newsletters, and trying to decide what to focus on. So I asked: What do you do uniquely well? What’s something you do that your fans fans already love? Many of them talked about their coverage of local news or sports or culture — the areas of expertise that their readers, listeners, and viewers rely on them for. That’s where to focus your attention, I told them. Invest in products to serve those audiences, and give them more of the things they already depend on you for.
There’s a great Steve Martin quote: “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” He’s right. Be so good they have to hire you. Be so good that your fans have to pay to get more of what you do. Identify your strengths — and work hard to get even better at the things you do well.
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I took that photo of San Antonio Missions pitcher Simón Castro — who later went on to pitch for the White Sox, Rockies, and As — back in 2010.
At the end of last year, I wrote about three types of goals to set in the new year: Learning goals, personal goals, and fitness goals. I wrote:
This is the time of year when people commit to New Year’s Resolutions — which inevitably end up discarded by the time February rolls around. So instead of setting a major resolution you’ll fall short on, start smaller. Start with something that’s going to help you grow, or feel more connected to your friends or community.
I’ve tried to put that idea into practice in 2019, starting with a simple fitness goal: Doing 10 push-ups, every day.
I don’t like doing push-ups. At the gym, I always felt self-conscious when I got down to do a push-up. I felt like the people around me would judge: Did he just get tired from a few push-ups? Is that all he can do?
So I set a truly simple goal: 10 push-ups, every day. It doesn’t seem like a lot, but it adds up. If I stick to this goal, I’ll do over 3,500 push-ups in 2019. I’d bet that’s more push-ups than I’ve done in the rest of my life — combined!
And I’ve discovered: I actually don’t mind doing push-ups! After a few weeks of my daily push-up routine, I feel more confident when I do them at the gym. In the morning, if I need a jolt of energy before I leave for work, I might drop and do 10. Often, I’ll add an extra set, since 10 push-ups isn’t that hard anymore.
It’s a simple goal, and a small goal. But by committing to the task every single day, it’s going to build to something that, by year’s end, I can be proud of.
You don’t have to write a check to go the extra mile.
You don’t have to go to school to learn a new skill.
Connecting with an old friend costs nothing, and might mean a lot to both of you.
You can’t put a dollar value on hard work.
You can always make time for a good conversation, to offer advice, or to just listen.
There are certain things in life that are available to all of us. They don’t cost a thing, and they don’t require a fancy degree — just time, or kindness, or a little bit of effort. Make time for those things. Be good to others. Listen carefully. Challenge yourself. Work hard. Some of the best things in life are free — and entirely up to you.
I was having a conversation the other night with a friend from college, and we were talking about how much has changed in the decade since we graduated. “Did you ever think you’d be doing the job you’re doing today?” she asked.
I didn’t. Ten years ago, my current role — being the person in charge of a newsletter program for a news organization — didn’t exist. It was six years ago this week that I launched my very first newsletter at BuzzFeed, and I remember struggling to find many other people in the industry who were working on email full time. There just weren’t that many of us around — email was usually a small part of someone’s job. Six years later, most newspapers, websites, and magazines have someone in a dedicated Newsletter Editor or Director of Newsletters role. (Often, they have an entire team devoted to email!)
I’ve been thinking about this a lot: The job I’m working in today didn’t exist five years ago. The job before that didn’t exist before I helped create it.
Which means that the job that comes next may not exist yet, either.
If you ever get worried about the future, remind yourself: There is no defined path forward. Embrace the uncertainty. Keep learning, keep reading, keep asking questions, keep working. Every day is a chance to build whatever future comes next.
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That’s a screenshot of the very first BuzzFeed Today newsletter, sent on Feb. 4, 2013.
“The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s eleven-thirty.”
That’s what Lorne Michaels, creator and producer of “Saturday Night Live,” said about “SNL.” As Tina Fey explained a few years ago:
This is something Lorne has said often about “Saturday Night Live,” but it’s a great lesson in not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke until the last possible second, but then you have to let it go.
I remember reading those words back when “Bossypants” came out in 2011, and they stuck with me. In 2012, I decided to make a commitment to this blog, which I’d first started in 2008, but hadn’t written for regularly. I decided I wanted to write three times a week for the blog — and somehow, despite everything I was doing with Stry.us that year, I somehow stuck to it. Then I went through a lull — just a handful of posts per month. In 2015, I made myself re-commit to writing one post a week, and have stuck with that pace ever since.
I’ll admit: Many of my blog posts aren’t great. (In fact, they’re mostly bad!) But it’s something I always do. The work happens, and then I move on. Writing for this blog has taught me so much about how to do the work even when I’m in a creative rut.
Lorne and Tina are right: Don’t be too precious with your work. Your work isn’t going to be perfect. Some of it will suck. But the show goes on at 11:30 — just get it done.
Commit to making time for something simple in the year ahead. Make a goal to try the crossword every morning, or to invite friends over for a home-cooked dinner ever week, or to see live music once a month. It’s the little things that often make you the happiest.
This is the time of year when people commit to New Year’s Resolutions — which inevitably end up discarded by the time February rolls around. So instead of setting a major resolution you’ll fall short on, start smaller. Start with something that’s going to help you grow, or feel more connected to your friends or community.
There are three types of goals that are easy to aim for:
Commit to a learning goal — Pledge to make time in 2019 to learn something new. If your company has a learning & development team, make it your goal to attend one of their trainings every quarter. Choose to read more — say, a new book every month. Or you can go even smaller: In 2018, when I realized that I didn’t know enough about the archives of the magazine I work at, I pledged to read one archive New Yorker story every day. It required me to set aside 30 additional minutes a day to read, but it’s helped me learn so much about the writers who’ve shaped this publication.
Commit to a personal goal — Again, keep it small. A few years ago, I pledged to save money by bringing my lunch to work more often. (The back-of-the-envelope math: Bringing a sandwich instead of buying lunch saves me about $1,500 per year. New York lunches are expensive!) You can commit to getting coffee each week with a colleague you don’t work with that often — expand your network at work! You can commit to volunteering more, or to making time for a puzzle. (I’ve never been one for crosswords, but I made it my goal in 2018 to try to get better at them. I’m still not very good, but I can get through about Wednesday in The New York Times, thanks to regular practice.) In 2019, I’d like to try to have friends over for a home-cooked dinner at least once a month. It’s a small goal, but it might push me to try to cook more (which I always enjoy!) and to connect with old friends (always wonderful!).
Commit to a fitness goal — A few years ago, I made it my goal to run 500 miles in a year — and I didn’t come close. (I ran 70 miles in the first three months, and 57 the rest of the year.) Reach goals for exercise are especially hard to hit. Set a more reasonable goal instead: Make it your goal to try a new fitness class every month. Or do what I’m going to try in 2019: To run three races (probably in the 5k-10k range) over the course of the year. One race every four months is doable, but would still be a real achievement for me.
Most importantly: Once you’ve set your goal, find an accountability partner to hold you to it. If you have someone there to keep track of your progress and urge you on, it makes it so much easier to keep going.
