TA #90: 🔥 The Cure for Burnout; Standout Sentence of the Week

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Welcome to the 90th issue of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.

Boston, Sunday, July 4, 2021

Hello, Wunnerful!

I'm on the coast of Maine this week, on vacation.

The Wi-Fi password at the only restaurant in town is PUTDOWNTHEPHONETALKTOYOURFAMILY. (Not kidding.)

A piece in the NY Times calls what I'm doing this week "fallow time." Bonnie Tsui reframes regular downtime as a part of a creative life—not apart from it.

"Fallow time is necessary to grow everything from actual crops to figurative ones"—like writing, like any work. "We need to rest, to read, to reconnect. It is the invisible labor that makes creative life possible," she says.

Said another way: we are doing something important when we are doing nothing at all important. Practicing Fallow Time isn't just nice; it's necessary: We need to slow down sometimes so we can speed up at other times.

* * *

I wrote that ^^ in 2019, in the first issue of this newsletter published July 4th weekend, which is Independence Day here in the US.

Rereading it now, I might quibble with calling downtime "invisible labor"—especially when for the past 16 months many of us have been *truly* laboring invisibly.

We've been in overdrive balancing it all: Covid worry. Home. Work. Zoom. Kids. Zoom again. Am I digitally transforming?

Teetering on burnout lit by the pandemic. (Although the burnout firewood had been stacked and the fire pit banked for years.)

You start to envy those who come home at the end of a day and don't think about work at all. Do those jobs exist? What would that be like?

Fallow Time in 2019 felt like a simple vacation.

In 2021, it feels like salvation.

* * *

For the 4th year in a row, MarketingProfs is closed this week, too—a kind of organizational Fallow Time.

Giving everyone the same paid week off helps check the dread of knowing that work is happening while you're away—that feeling that your inbox is filling up and meetings are happening without you.

When the entire company is closed, you might still return to a pile of work. But it's more molehill, less mountain.

Organizational Fallow Time feels especially needed this year—because this year we're roasting marshmallows over a burnout bonfire. Which is probably why others are shutting down, too—Bumble gave its 700 employees a paid, fully offline one-week vacation in June, citing a need to recharge. HubSpot is shutting down this coming week.

Our mental health needs it.

* * *

Give yourself some Fallow Time this season. Read. Rest. Reconnect with you.

I hope you are able to doing nothing much at all. But at the same time doing what's so very needed.

* * *

STANDOUT SENTENCE OF THE WEEK

Normally I use this space to celebrate standout marketing writing. But this week I'm sharing a line from a novel I'm reading. It's simple. It's compact. And it's perfect:

"His skin was not just clammy but the color and consistency of actual clams." —Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

Ann is describing a Bel Canto character—a Russian bureaucrat named Fyodorov. I read that line Monday night and I literally LOLed.

That sentence is now in my head. (It's moved in. Possibly vacationing there.)

I keep remembering it at odd moments (in line at the checkout, in the middle of a meeting). And I laugh suddenly and quietly. Yesterday I was picking out grapes in the supermarket when I thought of it and smiled. A woman across the produce aisle looked at me and then at the grapes, like the grapes had said something funny.

Anyhoo... Let's break down the science of why this sentence from Ann works, and what we can learn from it, mmkay?

Specificity: Fyodorov's pallor is not "gray" but the grayish-white color of clams. Our brains process more-specific words more fully because they paint a robust picture, making the writing more real, vivid, tangible.

>> Specific writing is more relatable writing.

Emotional context: Plenty of other things are gray (kittens, a stormy sky, maybe your hair mid-pandemic). But the cold-water, hard-shelled bivalve with a slippery, viscous interior delivers the visceral wallop needed for a character like Fyodorov, who is similarly cold-blooded, slick, enigmatic... yet also weirdly vulnerable.

>> Choose your analogies within a broader context. Even you there, writing your biotech newsletter.

Surprise: Comparing the color of skin to "actual clams" is surprising and offbeat. But it's the wordplay that brings me back to this sentence again and again.

"Clammy" the adjective (unpleasantly sweaty, sticky, slimy) has nothing to do with clams, the creatures. But juxtaposing "clammy" and "actual clams" is unusual, witty, playful. Also a little gross... but just enough to be memorable.

>> Surprising metaphors are like each of us post-Fallow Time: Fresher!
>> A fun tool for inspiring fresh comparisons is DescribingWords.

My challenge to you: This is a great week to celebrate great writing! Find a sentence this week you love. Share it on social media. (Don't forget to tag me and include the hashtag #TotalAnnarchy.) I'll reward 10 of my favorites with some sweet, sweet $WORD coin.

TRAVEL TRENDS + INSIGHTS [SPONSORED]

The travel and hospitality sector lost almost $4.7 trillion in 2020—as much as if all 7.9 billion people in the world threw $595 straight into a garage bin. What's more: 39% of us haven't stepped foot on an airplane since the start of the pandemic.

A new global research study of more than 9,500 consumers, conducted by customer engagement platform Braze, details the pandemic's effect on the travel industry, and what trends it's inspiring long-term.

I like how this study suggests how travel and hospitality brands can rebuild business to be truly customer-centric. There are few silver linings to a global pandemic. But one of them might be that some companies have a chance to stand out from the business-as-usual. Some travel trends:

Safety is more important than cost. Airlines are increasingly adding safety scores to boost traveler confidence.

Brands should be strategic about vaccination messaging, as there is very little consensus about "vaccine passports." For example: 21% of consumers state they are unwilling to share their vaccination status with a travel company.

Changing guidelines + heightened expectations = Stay agile in your messaging. Fully 63% of consumers expect travel and hospitality companies to communicate COVID-19 regulations at the location they are visiting.

Lots of good stuff in here! Download the entire report and revel in your smarts. (Reg. required.)

CONTENT TOOLS
A content tool I used this week.

TinyPNG. A fast and free tool that can compress images for webpages or emails to make them load faster than overstuffed, bloated graphics.

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Your favorite sweatpants got you through endless days filled with video calls, and countless nights of binge-watching and takeout. Now Visit Iceland will take those well-loved pandemic sweatpants and upcycle them into custom hiking boots ready to take on your first big adventure beyond your couch.

Fallow Time that honors sweatpants? Is there anything more 2021?

Iceland has been overwhelmed with the sweatpants response; slots were gone within days. But if Iceland is in your summer plans, you can still get on the wait list.

I also love that you can try on your own boots virtually (for those of us not quite ready to get off the couch).

LOVE LETTERS

💌 To Lee Odden of TopRank for this fun interview: Influencers & fish-fluencers, B2B, my dog Augie.

💌 To Eva Gutierrez at Digital Marketer for naming Everybody Writes one of the top 5 books every copywriter should read.

💌 To Barb Mosher Zinck for the newsletter love in this piece on episodic content.

* * *

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Stay hopeful.

I'll be back on July 18.

P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can:

1) buy a book.
2) Get yourself some $WORD coin. (Read more about creator coins here.)
3) Simply forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: www.annhandley.com/newsletter.

SPECIAL THANKS to AWeber for being the provider of choice for Total Annarchy. If you are looking to up your email game, give them a shout.

Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books.
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Ann Handley

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TA #90: 🔥 The Cure for Burnout; Standout Sentence of the Week

Older messages

TA #89: 🗣️ Public Speaking for Introverts (And Those Who Forget How to Be Around People); My Writing Framework

TA #88: 🌻 Show Me Your Summer Office; a Masterclass in How to Empathy

TA #87: 🎉 The Fun Parts of Writing; Ranking Content the Michael Scott Way

TA #86: 🍕 Taking Risks in Marketing without Losing Your Job; 15 Writing Lessons from Famous Authors

TA #85: 🔑 Should you ungate your content in 2021? And: A copywriting tip for the lazy.

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