Hello,
It's been a while! 8 months, in fact. What started as a brief hiatus for the summer turned into some soul-searching about what this newsletter is actually for.
The short answer to that is that it is a way to:
keep in touch
share what's making me think
start a conversation about those things
The other part of that soul-searching was around what belongs in a newsletter and if you have a newsletter, what is the function of a blog. As someone with a newsletter and multiple blogs, I'm still mulling this one over!
What I have concluded is to keep that I want to keep this newsletter going, but I'm going to change up the frequency and length - they will now be occasional and short.
I intend to write more on my blog and in these infrequent emails I'll share a round-up of those posts. The feedback I get is that you enjoy the links I share to stuff that's sparked my interest elsewhere, so I'll sprinkle in a few of those too. Other than that, I'm open to requests 😆
In case you've forgotten, here's a sample of the types of links I'll share...
Lumpers vs Splitters by Anna Havron. This article goes into the eternal debate among the notebook fetishists is whether we have a single source of truth or choose to divide and conquer (I'm a splitter btw).
Non-violent Communication in Communities by Laura Hilliger. I've been making an effort to remove words and phrases that have violent (often militaristic) or derogatory origins, this is a good primer if you want to do the same.
In 2023, I thought a lot about choices (Anonymous). This post shares details of an experiment to find the motivation to make good choices even when the reward is delayed.
Writers and talkers and leaders, oh my! by Mandy Brown. An exploration of different modes for thinking and learning, and how to make the most of the benefits of both. If you're put off by the binary nature of this at first, I'd encourage you to keep going.
You may have noticed that as well as unpicking the why and the what of this newsletter, I've also moved platform. Buttondown was the obvious replacement for me as it's unfussy, privacy focused and comes with the option to subscribe by RSS.
I'm not entirely sure of my sending schedule yet, but you'll likely hear from me again sometime in March. In the meantime, if you're wondering why you got this email or realise that what's to come is no longer of interest, then you'll find the unsubscribe link in the footer.
For those that don't choose that option... I'll speak to you again soon.
All the best,
Emma