If you spend as much time in email as I do, you’ve probably seen many email signatures. These bits of text (and sometimes images) are automatically added to the bottom of every email to identify the sender. Often, the signature is also used to promote the person’s company or latest projects.

For at least the last two years, my signature has looked like this:

Find me: adamd.org – @adamd – adam.coffee

Though instead of direct links, I used Bitly to track the clicks. That was because I wondered whether anyone actually read and followed the content in my signature.

Well, over the years I’ve learned that people definitely notice the signature. One element of it specifically has received attention in replies, as well as in person.

People Love adam.coffee

Though I try really hard not to buy domains I never use, I lined up on opening day of availability of the .coffee domain extension to grab adam.coffee. At around $30 a year, it felt like I should use the domain rather than just sit on it (sadly, over 60% of .coffee domains are parked, meaning they aren’t being used). I’m not enough of a coffee snob to review coffees or perform tastings. Without any more creative ideas, I simply hooked it up to my calendar and let people book time wth me on certain days.

Frequently, I’ll get replies like this to emails:

"I want to sign up for coffee with Adam! I just followed the adam.coffee link and that’s cool.”

"I’ll use your coffee link (which is brilliant btw ?)”

And periodically, friends lament the robotic approach of spending time together:

“I assume I now have to navigate your adam.coffee link. ?”

People Indeed Click the Links

Every three days or so, one of the links in my signature gets a click. The coffee site and my vanity website both get about the same interest. My Twitter page gets about half as many clicks. That could be because it has middle position, or because it’s the least interesting.

Of course, I don’t send the same amount of email every month. Looking back over the last two years, I counted the number of threads in my sent folder. This isn’t quite the same as messages sent, but it’ll do for spitballing. September, 2016, I sent to the most threads (182) and my signature received the most clicks that month (25). However, a few months later in February, 2017, when I sent to 158 threads, only eight links were clicked.

Curious, I plugged the numbers into the CORREL spreadsheet function, and mustered the remnants of my statistics knowledge. The resulting 0.33 p value is a pretty weak correlation.

How Do I Track My Signature?

Reading this, you may want to perform similar navel gazing. Perhaps you have a professional or business reason to care about the clicks. That’s even better.

Here’s what you need:

• At least one link to embed in your signature
• A free Bitly account
• Patience while you wait for results

While logged into Bitly, create a new Bitlink, which converts the link into a shortened (and trackable) Bitly version. Now you’ll have something like this: bit.ly/1mWVMEg

Now you can create a signature in your email program. The best option is if you can have a rich text signature, which can include the link embedded. Remember to use the Bitly link, not the original link!

One thing to try for easy formatting is to create your signature in a visual editor like Word or Google Docs. Then copy and paste it to your email program—in many cases, the formatting will come along for the ride.

Maybe it’s the programmer in me, but I always like to test things out. Go ahead and send yourself an email with the new signature enabled. No need to send it to a different email address. You can just send it to yourself. While you’re at it, give yourself a nice pep talk, the modern equivalent of a conversation in the mirror.

When you receive the email, click the link to make sure it shows up in the right spot. Then check your stats for the Bitlink in Bitly (it may not be immediate—remember patience is required here).

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Did you create trackable links in your email signature? I want to see it! Send me an email and I’ll be sure to click.

It was the last day of the year, and I intended to end it with an empty inbox. The only emails left were strangers reaching out for help with API comparisons. I enjoy these conversations, but I admit I saw them at that moment as a blocker between me and Inbox Zero. As I prepared a succinct-but-helpful reply, something wonderful happened.

I had quickly searched for some documentation to answer the query. I skimmed the content, copied the URL, tabbed over to my email window… then tabbed back to the documentation, because my brain had noticed something familiar. On this same page was the answer to another question I’d been noodling on for a few weeks. A completely disconnected search led me to a solution.

Wouldn’t it be great if that kind of unrelated epiphany could be controlled?

Maybe it can be. You’ve probably experienced the benefits of going on a walk when you’re looking for a breakthrough. I often return to my desk with a new perspective. A 2014 Stanford study explained why, finding that walking increases creativity:

The overwhelming majority of the participants in these three experiments were more creative while walking than sitting, the study found. In one of those experiments, participants were tested indoors – first while sitting, then while walking on a treadmill. The creative output increased by an average of 60 percent when the person was walking, according to the study.

Walking must be like a reboot for your brain, clearing out the cobwebs. Maybe I got a similar jolt of mental energy from answering those last emails. I already enjoy helping people, but now I have another reason to assist. These often one-off basic inquiries are like taking a walk–they help my brain reboot and, maybe, find an unrelated epiphany.

It’s the most famous portrait of the first president of the United States. You’d have never seen it if the artist waited for it to be finished.

Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 painting of George Washington went on to be used for the $1 bill. So, if you’ve ever held a buck, you’ve seen his work.

Stuart also painted portraits for five other presidents, two first ladies, a chief justice of the Supreme Court, and Napolean’s brother. Yet, this George Washington portrait is his most famous work. But we rarely see the full canvas.

That’s because Gilbert Stuart decided it was “good enough” as-is. Good enough for him to copy more than 100 times on other canvases. Good enough, eventually, to be on multiple postage stamps. Good enough for US currency!

Even though this was 221 years ago, Gilbert Stuart was doing what The Paradox of Choice calls satisficing. Once the portrait met Stuart’s criteria, he was done. In this case, it had to be good enough to use as a template for other paintings.

The key there is determining the criteria and being willing to settle for far less than perfection. The original iPhone wasn’t that great, but they released it anyway. They had a chance to make incremental–and over time, major–improvements.

You can do the same with whatever you’re working on. Whether it’s a side project (remember the side project lifecycle), an initiative at work, or you’re cleaning the house.

Be willing to keep some canvas empty. It doesn’t have to be permanent.

Recently I picked up a book I first read in fifth grade. It was a book I really didn’t have any business reading when I was ten years old, but I remember liking Robert Fulghum’s humor in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten and its sequels. It also probably helps that each story is short (less than five pages in my small paperback version). I may appreciate that even more as an adult.

The book was first published in 1986, and its stories reference much earlier times, all well before technology and the Internet became ubiquitous. I’m not sure which are the simpler times. In the book’s first story, I found myself reminiscing about how information used to be gathered:

Spiders. Amazing creatures. Been around maybe 350 million years, so they
can cope with about anything.

At some point in the writing process, someone had to source that arachni-fact. Maybe it was within the “S” volume of their encyclopedia set, or a thick book of trivia. Otherwise, it would require a trip to the library and a search for the right reference book.

As I quickly type this post into my cloud-hosted blog software, I opened a new tab and got a similar answer in seconds. I didn’t even write out my complete question, because Google suggested this search based on many other curious humans.

We already know that many things have changed because of the Internet. Reading Fulghum’s “uncommon thoughts on common things” from over 30 years ago sent me thinking about the other efforts required for him to publish his book:

• He may have written longhand on yellow legal pads, or typed on a manual typewriter. Once he saw success, perhaps he bought an early and expensive “personal computer.”
• Drafts were likely typed and mailed to the publisher. By the early 90s, maybe he faxed edits.
• He was discovered when a printed copy of his story was sent home with school children, one of whom had a literary agent parent.

Today, he’d likely write directly into a relatively inexpensive laptop, perhaps using writing software within a web browser. Feedback and edits could all happen within the same document, which could then be exported for publication.

Or maybe he’d just have a blog, which, of course, he does.

In baseball, first base is different from second and third. You can touch first, run past it, and still be safe. This rule means that once you hit the ball, your only objective is to run as fast as you can all the way through first base.

Paul L Dineen

If your hit went right to an infielder, it’s tempting to give up and jog. Even if you’re certain you’re safe, it’s natural to slow down as you approach your destination. But that means running to, not running through.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░ 92%

— Year Progress (@year_progress) December 2, 2017

It seems like the year is almost over, but as my friend Heitor tweeted, there is 8% of the year left. If 2017 is the 90 feet between home and first, there are more than seven feet remaining.

I’m going to run through December 31.