how to make your newsletter instantly more readable

Emails, but better.​
​The newsletter that makes other newsletters jealous

Get ready to be jealous:
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I’m back at my desk after a four-day weekend in which I didn’t work at all. My inbox is (mostly) clear plus I already knocked out all my tasks in Asana.

It’s 11am on a Tuesday.
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I could be doing anything right now! I could kick back with a novel and a Bubly.*

It can be hard to recognize an opportunity for rest even when it’s staring you in the face. The truth is, I started writing this email on Monday even though it was booked off.

The kids were at grandmas and I had a few hours free. “Why not get a head start on the week?” I reasoned.

But outside the sun was blazing. I could imagine it bouncing seductively off the cool waters of the Welland canal where I paddle. From a distance the call of my garage could be heard.

Why write hooks for emails when you could be drilling actual hooks into walls?! Think of the brooms, bins and gardening tools you could be organizing, the sports equipment is yet to find its perfect home!

I abandoned the email after less than one pomodoro, thus saving the lunch that would otherwise have burned to a crisp on the stove, as per tradition when I’m writing.

This is something I’ve been working on: actually living the life that was promised by the business model I chose.

In order to do that I have to recognize moments when I don’t need to be working, and resist the urge to fill them with work because it’s the most comfortable / familiar thing to do. Resting is way outside my comfort zone.

I closed my laptop and didn’t go back.

This isn’t a case for never working on a holiday. It’s a luxury lots of people can’t afford. Except I can.

I’m proud of how I spent this 4-day weekend, as proud as I’ve ever been of any 6-figure launch, big speaking opportunity or dream client. With the exception of this momentary lapse on Monday, I didn’t work at all.

Instead, I spent the weekend…

“Relaxing” in a 100 degree Korean sauna
Washing all my Ruggables
Getting my butt kicked at chess by my 9-year-old
Kicked his butt at badminton just as many times
Getting in my sprint canoe for the first time this season — AND NOT FALLING OUT ONCE!!!
Eating sushi on my patio with my bestie and her plus one
Cleaning the floor of my garage enough to go shoeless
Planting Zinnias
Text-flirting with the sexy waitress who gave me her number last week
Playing pirates with my kids on our SUPs
Bouncing on the trampoline ‘till my legs turned to jelly
Kayak, SUP, C1, canoe, repeat
Lathering myself in Doterra Deep Blue 3x day
Wrestling my children who refused to go to bed
Staging a nighttime raid on a wasp nest (Wasps 0, Tarzan 2)
Climbing into freshly washed sheets to watch Love is Blind

All three nights I fell asleep to the sound of two naughty children having a pillow fight down the hall, wondering what I could possibly have done to deserve all this.

It makes me think of this passage in Tom Lake by Ann Patchett that I dogeared and reread a dozen times:

“There is no explaining the simple truth about life: that you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”

That’s exactly the way I feel right now.

Could it get any sweeter? I am eating marshmallows while writing this—you can’t make this stuff up!

I have many problems left to solve and projects waiting for my attention. I still work a ton of hours. I get stressed about real problems and imaginary ones. Even though my mastermind is already 50% full, there are days it feels like all is lost and the only answer is to work even harder. I repeat to myself hundreds of times per day, “You are safe, you are safe, you are safe.”

But despite all of that, I make space for what matters most, including puttering in my garage for hours (and occasionally fortifying myself with a bump of a substance that is not sold by Doterra! )

It’s important to me you know that, alongside my business, I am also building a life that is rich with connections and activities I love, a life that is as delightful as these emails.

You won’t find pictures of it on Instagram, so it felt important to remind you.

This is the life that’s happening behind the scenes of every business strategy, newsletter recommendation or helpful tool that finds its way into these emails.

I wouldn’t recommend any product or person that would threaten the foundation I worked so hard to put in place, even if it means saying no to lucrative affiliate deals or sponsorship offers, which it often does.

Just wanted you to know that.

I hope that makes you want to stick around forever.

XOT
*As all Canadians know, it’s pronounced “Bublé” 

How To Make Your Newsletter Instantly More Readable
BETTER EMAILS, IN 5MIN OR LESS

An easy-to-read newsletter relies heavily on two settings in your template: line height and paragraph spacing.

You can make your newsletter instantly more readable by configuring these settings. It should be super easy to tell where a new paragraph begins. If line height and paragraph spacing are too similar, the whole email blends together and becomes difficult to scan.

Here’s what our settings look like in ConvertKit:
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Font Size: 16px
Font Colour: #000000 (<–blackest black!)
Line Height: 1.25
Paragraph Spacing: 23px

This might seem like a tiny detail, but it’s essential for readability and takes only a few minutes to set up.