Newsletters are a great way to appear ridiculously well-read and stay up to date on current affairs. There are all different types of newsletters for a range of topics. I’ve put together a selection of some of my favourite newsletters that I am currently enjoying reading.
Me when I receive one of these newsletters in my inbox.
Morning Brew
This is a newsletter that recently I have been reading from start to finish. It focuses on a range of topics in a concise way. It makes reading the news enjoyable. There isn’t even a need to click out as you get so much value from the actual newsletter. Here’s an example. They also have quizzes, a weekly crossword and recommendations of who to follow on social media.
Sign up for the Morning Brew here.
5 Bullet Friday by Tim Ferris
Famous for The 4 Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris is the king of lifehacking and in his weekly newsletter, he shares what he may be reading, listening to or thinking about. A former Tech Girl Book Club pick, Tools of Titans, offers all the best advice from the amazing people he gets to interview (also check out his podcast here).
Sign up for 5 Bullet Friday here.
Slice by 22Seven
This app is amazing for keeping track of your expenses, they also break down complex financial stuff and make it easy to understand. I love the format of their newsletter and the interesting tidbits they give you.
Sign up for the 22Seven newsletter here.
Sketplanations
Written by Jono Hey, Sketplanations is a weekly sketch that explains a topic through a drawing. My favourite is all the biases. Really easy way to understand something new. This week’s one was particularly relevant to COVID-19 and lockdown rules.
Get Sketplanations delivered to your inbox by signing up here.
Business Insider
I don’t really follow the news but I do get the daily email from Business Insider which deals with some news while also throwing in fun facts. I really miss their daily Whatsapp, but that had to change due to regulations. The newsletter is short and sweet and keeps me up to date.
Sign up for Business Insider here.
Quartz Obsession
Claire S introduced me to this and I am so glad that she did. Quartz is a great publication on its own but they have a newsletter where the writers focus solely on an obsession. Obsessions like sweatpants, bingo, platypus, Myers-Briggs, Netflix, Narwhals, etc.
A note from the universe
If you’re into this kind of thing, I find the daily note from the universe to be very inspiring. It usually arrives at like 10am and it is a good way for me to stop and think. Make sure you read the footnotes because there are always hidden gems.
Longreads
I love reading but I especially love reading long reads. These are long-form articles that give you enough info about a subject to make you feel like you could talk about it if pressed.
Longreads sends out a weekly newsletter with its top articles. One I read a while back was about moving trucks in America. Sounds boring but was actually fascinating. Sign up for Longreads here.
Topics vary, but one I recently really enjoyed was about the Eiderdown industry and the eider duck. Yup, the stuff you duvet or jacket is stuffed with. There is also a Longreads podcast from The Guardian if you’d rather listen than read.
Wired longreads
I only discovered this newsletter recently after reading an article about one of the founders of Cloudflare who started behaving strangely and it was only years later that he was diagnosed with a neurological degenerative disease. Expect tech and the weird and wonderful.
Sign up for the weekly Wired Longreads newsletter here.
I made a list of great newsletters to subscribe to a while back, and by a while, I mean a few years. There are still some goodies in here though.
How to keep all your promotional emails in one place & only receive them once a day
I use Unroll.me so that I only receive one email a day with all of my emails. This way I don’t get interrupted by unnecessary email notifications and I can set aside some time to focus on reading them.
Just don’t roll up emails from airlines or places you usually get confirmation emails from. Let’s just say I may or may not have complained about not receiving an email, only to discover that I had added it to unroll.me and only received it the next day. Don’t be like me.
The service is free and they clearly state what they are doing with your data. You can also unsubscribe from newsletters, but note that if you stop using the service those newsletters will come back to haunt you like a bad breakup.
