I’m stumped. We’ve had 500 visitors to YouAreNotYourInbox.com, from a variety of sources, and under 1% purchase from people who find the product via that page.
This is what we call a “learning opportunity.”
If you have visited and decided not to buy, would you be willing to share your reasons? (If you would like to share them privately, mention that in your comment and when I moderate, I won’t make the comment public.)
Thank you!
I’m collecting the final list of tips for the book. I’m noticing there are two categories of tips and am not sure they would work together in a book. Here are samples:
| Broad-stroke | Narrow |
|---|---|
| Use networking for your job search | Name files YYYYMMDD when they contain dates |
| Cultivate your intuition for decision-making | Clear your inbox backlog by deleting extra messages. |
Will these work in the same book? Would someone looking for “happiness and success” tips be that interested in the “file folders” category? And vice versa…
Conventional wisdom has it that you should sandwich negative feedback between two pieces of positive feedback. You can read about “the hamburger method” here.
Shelle Rose Charvet points out that most people already know the method. Now, when they hear positive feedback, they simply bypass it and wait fo the shoe to drop (then they ignore the final piece of positive feedback, which is obviously just there to soften the negative feedback). She advocates giving feedback in a way that avoids direct negative statements yet still accomplishes the goal, to stimulate behavior change. You can read Shelle Rose Charvet’s “The Feedback Sandwich is Out to Lunch.”
What do you think? If I were to include a “giving feedback” method in the Get-it-Done Guy book, which do you think would be best to include?
I just put the finishing touches on an audio product called You Are Not Your Inbox: Overcoming Email Overload. It is a 3-CD set plus web page with relevant links and resources.
I’ve never marketed an information product before. Any and all ideas you might have that could help would be greatly appreciated! The price point ($47) is such that it makes no sense to hire a firm to do the marketing; I’d have to sell hundreds of units just to pay for the firm.
Here are some thoughts I’ve had so far:
I’m overloaded! Yes, it happens to me, too
The problem happens when I take on a new project, here’s a delay in the project (e.g. I’m waiting for someone to get me a document), and during that delay, I start something new. Once the delay is over, I now have two projects on my plate that together take up more time than I have.
So I’m in the midst of re-examining how I use my time and space. When you are examining your own life, how do you decide what to drop and what to keep? If everything on your plate is related to one of your goals, how do you choose which stays and which goes?
Do you have some priorities that are constant (“Family always comes first”)? Do your priorities change? Why and how?
I’ve noticed that each year, I choose new constant priorities. For example, this year health is a huge theme. My workouts and health commitments have consciously dominated everything. But other priorities change according to my projects.
Insights appreciated!
Quick question… In my podcast, I use a lot of humor. The humor is almost always tangential to the actual point. After all, how funny are file folders? Not very. But file folders being used as emergency underwear? Er, hilarious.
Work Less and Do More is shaping up to be a book of a great many chapters or sections, each of which has a concrete tip. As I write, I’m having doubts about the humor-to-content ratio. In the podcast, about half the content is humor and attitude, and half is content. In a book, this seems too high on the humor for me.
Do people want more humor or more time spent on the content? Content seems pretty dry to me, but then, humor can feel overbearing if it’s hundreds of pages.
What do you think? You’re (hopefully) going to be my readers. Your thoughts appreciated!
Tim Sanders wrote a blog entry that references a Business Week article on information overload I commented on last week. The writer suggests that information overload might be good. There might be some valuable information, and besides, young people can handle it just fine.
Sure. In what universe?
Update 8/8/08: Name chosen! The product now exists! You are Not Your Inbox, available at http://www.YouAreNotYourInbox.com !
I’m in the final stages of developing a product that helps people combat e-mail overload. Could you help me choose a title? The subtitle will describe the product; the main title should be catchy, PR-worthy, etc.
Have you ever wondered how certain corrupt businesspeople can keep spouting great, moral words while doing the exact opposite in their behavior? You wonder how they can wax eloquent about the need to give customers high-quality products while they happily substitute inferior quality raw materials to save costs. You wonder: are they insane? Probably not. Yes, they hear voices in their head. But we all do that. The problem is that they’re listening to the wrong ones.
In a New York Times article today, John Tierney discusses the science behind hypocrisy and how we fool ourselves. It seems when we distract our conscious mind, we listen mainly to our “gut” (or our “heart,” depending on how poetic an image you prefer), and we know when we’re doing The Wrong Thing. When our conscious minds are free, however, we use them—to self-justify. When we engage in hypocritical or anti-social behavior, our conscious mind goes to work creating justifications so we believe we’re doing the right thing, even when we aren’t.
In the past several years, I’ve become more aware of my own “heart voice.” When I have a troubling decision to make, or strong ambivalence about a situation, I sit quietly. Actually, my brain is usually shrieking gibberish about how unfair I’m being treated, or about how I don’t deserve what’s happening, or about how I’m an utter and complete failure at life because I missed “9 Down” in today’s New York Times crossword puzzle. So here’s this Shrieking Monster in my head, and I let it rant while putting attention on the middle of my chest. Then when the Shrieking Monster stops to take a breath, I quickly ask, “What should I do in this situation?”
Then I sit. After a few minutes, beneath the Monster comes a little, quiet voice. It’s barely even in words. And it has an answer.
The moment the answer comes, I know it’s the right one for me. It’s almost always the moral thing, the ethical thing, the loving thing, the passionate thing. In some weird way, it’s the answer I already knew was right, but just wouldn’t admit to myself. It took a chat with the Little Voice to bring it to the place where it could be heard over the Shrieking Monster voice.
The Shrieking Monster is the one that usually pushes me to do stupid things. It goads me to yell at people when I’m frustrated, to get petulant and childish when I could be forging alliances, and to beat myself up when I don’t do well, even if I did my best. The Little Voice, though, is my own internal Dear Abby: its advice is excellent, even if its hairstyle could stand some updating.
If you’ve never tried this, give it a shot. Ponder a decision that’s giving you angst. Maybe it’s a word decision. Maybe it involves your Sweetie. Choose a really, really important decision, like: should I pick up the socks myself, or continue screaming at my sweetie for another eight months to pick them up? Sit quietly with the situation. Your Shrieking Monster will helpfully point out how unfair it is that you have to pick up the socks, how much you deserve to have the socks picked up for you, and how you really should break up because of the socks. Then sit quietly and listen to the Little Voice behind the shrieking monster. It just might have some good advice. If it seems reasonable, give it a shot. You might find yourself acting more ethically, more morally, more lovingly, and more happily. In other words, you just may find your little voice is the key to acting as—not just aspiring to be—your Very Best Self.
Find the article on hypocrisy at http://r.steverrobbins.com/hypocrisyarticle.