IG#28: The best way to get newsletters out of your Inbox and into your brain

Welcome & happy Sunday!

Today, you’ll get one tech setup to make your life much better, and four interesting links from business, newsletter growth, and geopolitics. Let’s dive in.

[1] The best system to read newsletters

Is your inbox overflowing too with newsletters?

Mine certainly is: the more newsletters I subscribe to, the more chaotic it gets. And reading them in an email client isn’t pleasant either.

So I came up with a solution. Here’s what you’ll need:

• A dedicated email address for your newsletters
• A Readwise subscription

Step 1: Set up a custom email address for your newsletters

There are a few ways to do this:

If you have your own domain:

• Go to your CPanel, select “email”, and create dedicated newsletters@yourdomain.com address

If you use Gmail:

• Simply create an alias by using “+”: firstname.lastname+newsletters@gmail.com

If you use Outlook:

• Add an alias following these instructions

You can, of course, also just create a new email address with any provider of your liking.

Step 2: Create a Readwise Account

Readwise is a tool initially designed to give you spaced repetition from your marked sections on your Kindle.

This will come in handy later, but for now, you just need your account.

Go to settings, and find the forwarding address that adds emails to your “Reader” app (which is where we’ll read the newsletters).

Step 3: Set up a forwarder to Readwise

Creating a forwarder is easy. You can either set it up inside your CPanel, where you created the email account, or in Gmail or Outlook.

Now, there’s one more culprit: Substack. Since I’m using my Substack account to subscribe to other Substack newsletters, I cannot have the emails go to my newsletter email address.

So here, you have to create a custom rule: if an email is sent from an @substack.com address, it should be forwarded to your newsletter address. How you do this depends on your email client as well.

Alternatively, you can create two Substack accounts: one to read, and one to write.

Step 4: Install the Reader App on your phone

Download the Readwise Reader App and sign in. From now on, all your newsletters will appear in there instead of clogging up your inbox.

Step 5: Read newsletters & remember more

But it doesn’t stop there: whenever you mark a sentence or section, it’ll be added to your Readwise archive.

Once per day, you’ll receive an email with 3 sections that you’ve marked before. This way, using spaced repetition, you’ll retain the things you’ve read much better.

Doing this has gotten me from my default “let me browse Instagram / LinkedIn / Reddit” on my phone to opening the Reader App.

I used to skip half the newsletters hitting my inbox. Now, I read them, and even remember some of the contents.

It costs money, yes.

It’s also made my reading infinitely more pleasant and useful.

It’s worth the investment.

Try it, and see how you get on.

[2] Links that might be useful

• Here are four business frameworks that you can apply in your personal life life
• Codie Sanchez recently dropped a video on how she grew her newsletter to 11k subscribers within the first four weeks of launching. There’s a lot to learn here; so much, in fact, that I watched it twice.
• Speaking of Newsletter growth, I can recommend this piece from Growth in Reverse about Alex García. I don’t know who he is and have never read his newsletter, but the tactics in there are incredibly useful.
• We might have another war on our hands soon, with Venezuela looking to annex parts of Guyana. Fantastic breakdown here.

That’s it for this week. Like, share, comment, subscribe, you know the drill.

Most importantly, though:

• Make the most of your day today.
• Get out there.
• Do cool shit.
• Love life.

Let’s unlock our potential together. 🤝

LFG

Dominik Nitsch

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how else I can help you:

• Read the newsletter archive for more actionable nuggets
• Download your free copy of The Ultimate Guide to Time Management (how to reclaim 4 hours of your day)
• Connect on LinkedIn or Twitter for daily doses of insights
• Send me a question that you’re thinking about! I’m always looking for content that is relevant to YOU.

One ask from my side

I’ve been getting a lot of feedback that some of you really enjoy what I’m writing - which makes me feel giddy, warm, and fuzzy. Please keep that coming.

My friend Lea mentioned recently: “a few friends and myself love the newsletter - we don’t always agree with what you write, but it encourages discussions among us, and that’s awesome”.

I love hearing that. If everybody agreed all the time on the things that I write, this stuff would be boring as hell.

So if you feel anything like Lea, please tell a friend about this newsletter, and maybe even forward them this email. It’s the best thing you can do to help this newsletter grow.

The more people subscribe, the more time I’m forced to spend on writing the best possible newsletter. Again, everybody wins.

Click the button below. 👇