A few months ago, I made a change to the email signature in my work email, just beneath my name and title/website link. I added a section called "Here's what I'm up to."
This is what it looked like last month:
Here's what I'm up to in May:
- Writing a book about writing newsletters to build your 1:1 practice (if you want to be a beta reader, I'd love that!)
- Reading Travels with Charley, Scythe, and A Treacherous Curse
- Making sun tea with lemon balm & mint
- Traveling to the Green Bank Observatory in WV (13,000 sq miles of a national radio quiet zone!) + the Holocaust Museum in DC with homeschool friends
If you want to see what June's looks like, just reply to this message or send me an email this month.
I saw something similar in an email I received from someone else (weirdly, someone selling very expensive air filters?) and loved it so much that I thought I'd make up my own version.
I like it because it's humanizing. It's a way to share a little bit about myself, without (hopefully) oversharing. I like the reminder that, even when we're communicating about work things, we're humans with lives and personalities beyond the screen.
In my teaching and in my clinical work, I've found that the more human I can be, and the more I can relate to the humanity of the people with whom I'm interacting, the more meaningful the experience is.
I'd love to see more people adding a "What' I'm up to" section to their emails - it makes email just a tiny bit more interesting. Maybe you'll do it?
Take care,
Camille