Bobulate

Is saying goodbye really that hard? Apparently, yes: yes it is. Instead of following through and cutting ties properly, I have to admit, I’ve been taking the easy way out.

For longer than I feel comfortable discussing, I’ve been relying on Apple Mail’s Junk filter to be the bad guy. Instead of taking the few extra seconds to unsubscribe from unwanted email newsletters, I’ve trained Junk to inauspiciously hide mail I’m too lazy to deal with myself.

I’m well aware of Training Mode and respect Mail’s ability to learn. But no matter. The Flavorpill newsletter I signed up for in hopes of being the first to know? The Daily Candy list I subscribed to in hopes of being first at the sample sale? The Threadless announcements I subscribed to hoping to never have to deal with Women’s Medium being sold out again? No slight against these fine texts (and they really are), but I just lost interest. They’re all junk to me now. More…

Nevermind what you thought about your friends — Gmail might know better.

I think I know where my relationships stand — whether they’re with close, everyday friends, online friends, work friends, childhood friends — I can sum them up in a few sentences. (In fact, I have complex taxonomies for thinking about them, but that’s for another post.) And even though these relationships seem fairly uncomplicated, there are nuances that aren’t discussed out loud; details that go unsaid. And sometimes, important details get missed entirely as I speed through my day.

But it appears that Gmail might be able to help avoid, or at least inform, these overlooked details. Gmail can be used to prescribe the nature of relationships. More…

Forget what you’ve heard about first impressions; it’s the last impressions that count. Last impressions — whether they’re with customer service, an online shopping experience, or a blind date — are the ones we remember. They’re the ones that keep us coming back. But there’s one kind of final impression that people seem to forget.

The closing line of email — that line that you write before you type your name — has been all but forgotten. Go take a look at your inbox: you might be astonished at how little attention people pay to the closing lines when writing email. This underrated rhetorical device is so frequently disregarded that many people have the gall to use an automatic closing line attached to their email signature file. More…

I’ve been thinking about words recently. A lot. Between finishing up the editorial and design process for our first book and working with the masterful contributors for A Brief Message, I’m seeing words in my sleep.

That’s why when I recently ran across a passage about words in what I thought was an otherwise non-word-type book, Eat, Pray, and Love, it stood out. More…

I’m not a writer. In fact, I take pride in the negative part of that sentence because what I am—what I love to be—is an editor. Editors and writers, while in the trenches with words together, really comprise two pretty different mindsets.

I’ve been editing for a while, but it wasn’t until I read Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style (thanks to Dan and Jason at An Event Apart) that I realized one of my most important jobs as editor: the editor, like fine-tuned typography, must be transparent. More…

When it comes to answering the phone, I’ve never been one for ceremony. I learned early on that our family was nothing if not practical. When I visited friends’ houses, they would impress us with phone etiquette, “The Barrett residence; this is Brendan speaking,” in their flat eight-year-old voices. But the Danzico kids: we just answered with a simple “hello.” It got the job done. More…