Teddy Wayne:

There are many moments throughout my average day that, lacking print reading material in a previous era, were once occupied by thinking or observing my surroundings: walking or waiting somewhere, riding the subway, lying in bed unable to sleep or before mustering the energy to get up.

Now, though, I often find myself in these situations picking up my phone to check a notification, browse and read the internet, text, use an app or listen to audio (or, on rare occasions, engage in an old-fashioned “telephone call”). The last remaining place I’m guaranteed to be alone with my thoughts is in the shower.

It’s not just during downtime that you’re mindlessly distracting yourself. You’re checking Facebook “just for a minute” a half-dozen times at your desk. You’re catching up on your Pocket reading list when you could be enjoying quality time with your family. You’re reading about a news event and then checking Twitter to see what the hot-takes are.

Avoiding these distractions and refocusing on what matters requires deliberate effort. Turn off notifications on your phone. Disable the “ding” that indicates you have a new email. Log out of Facebook. Delete the apps you hate that you use.

Carrie Brownstein makes the case for uninventing the conference call: “Multiple people trying to speak at once? That sounds unwieldy and inefficient. It is.”

The whole thing is worth a read.

Group chat is a useful tool for work, Jason Fried writes:

I just don’t think it’s the go-to tool. I think it’s the exception tool. It’s far more useful for special cases than general cases. When used appropriately, sparingly, and in the right context at the right time, it’s great. You just really have to contain it, know when not to use it, and watch behavior and mood otherwise it can take over and mess up a really good thing.

The goal is productivity, not communication for its own sake.

Ed Catmull:

If you aren’t experiencing failure, then you are making a far worse mistake: You are being driven by the desire to avoid it. And, for leaders especially, this strategy—trying to avoid failure by out-thinking it—dooms you to fail.

Quick quiz: When you send out a fundraising email, do you measure its success based on:

1. The open rate of the email;
2. The click rate of the email; or
3. The revenue the email generates?

If you answered anything but 3, try again.

The actual goal of a fundraising email isn’t widely understood, even among fundraisers. Roger Craver has a great rant at The Agitator about this problem:

Sure, there’s plenty of stupid, phony measurements that lead nowhere. Measurements I call ‘vanity metrics’ like ‘open rates’, ‘page views’ and other such nonsense.

Sadly, there’s little or no measurement of the difficulty, frustration – or, hallelujah – moments when donors attempt to engage with nonprofit websites.

Yet we continue to honor — and pay — the consultants, staff and others who bring us lots of ‘Likes’ on Facebook, lots of open rates and views on our websites. Most of it is absolute bullshit!

Opens and clicks and likes are inputs to, not the output of, your fundraising machine. These vanity metrics are useful only insofar as they contribute to revenue. They can be a proxy for success, but as often as not they aren’t.

Opens and clicks are necessary but not sufficient for email fundraising success. Without opens and clicks, your email appeal won’t succeed. But don’t gauge your success based on those alone.

Repeat after me: the purpose of a fundraising email is to raise funds. Period.