OG Tuesday Issue #158

Start your morning with this affirmation:

Today’s checklist: Wrangle your digital subscriptions, keep your over-planning tendencies in check, improve your memory in 10 minutes, and meet Simon, the OG “smartphone.”

More and more people are feeling stuck paying for subscriptions they don’t really want.

You suddenly remember your intentions to cancel while looking at your bank statement, lamenting paying another month of fees for a streaming service you haven’t accessed in months. You don’t have to feel stuck paying for subscriptions if you remember the acronym, S-T-U-C.

S
Study your statements. 
Review all your bank and credit card statements carefully. A new or recurring charge may be the easiest way to learn…

T
Track how much you’re spending (to motivate yourself to save) 
Make a spreadsheet listing:

U
Update your payment methods. 
Put all your subscription fees onto one credit card or bank account. You’ll spend less time and energy trying to piece together your subscription footprint.

C
Create a cancellation calendar. 
Review the cancellation and renewal policies for each service. Add the renewal dates to your calendar so you can remember to cancel before you’re locked into another year or month.

But wait. Why do you even have to do all this work to stop buying things you don’t want?

Tracking and even canceling subscriptions that are supposed to buy you “fun” may feel like…well, work.

That’s because it is.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) feels similarly, namely that canceling digital subscriptions is too hard because companies purposefully make it too hard via something they call the negative option.

With the negative option, instead of actively and knowingly purchasing things, like you do at Target for example, you might be purchasing things passively—by not specifying that you don’t want to purchase them.

The FTC’s current rule on the negative option applies only to physical goods and not digital subscriptions. In March 2023, they proposed a rule to cover the digital landscape as well.

So what’s the status?

In short, TBD.

Many business-end groups criticized the proposal across the media, and some submitted complaints during the formal comment period. The FTC is currently reviewing all that feedback before deciding next steps.

That could take a minute.

Discover the transformative power of mood boards, your secret weapon for inspiration, organization, and goal achievement.

Mood Boards for Your Professional Projects:

Whether you’re looking to level up your work projects or embarking on a personal growth journey, mood boards are your guiding light.

🔥 Pro-Tip: Use your business email to access hundreds of templates and invite collaborators for free!

It can be practical, soothing, and even pleasurable to make a perfect plan. But sometimes, the relationship between you and your plan can become a little warped.

Let’s say your plan is perfect, but too complex. You don’t actually have time to do everything you planned to do. Or maybe your plan is too perfect. You start on the deliverables only to realize the reality will never live up to your perfect plan. Or maybe just making the plan is enough to kick off your procrastination reflex. You know exactly what you planned to do but you really don’t want to do it.

A possible solution: Spend only 10% of your time planning and 90% of your time doing the work. 

Why?

To avoid the productive procrastination trap known as overplanning. The rule also ensures you start executing a plan before you’ve spent too long on it. You’ll know sooner rather than later if your perfect plan is unrealistic, you know, before you get too attached to it.

Again and again, research suggests the best way to exercise your memory is through general physical exercise. Even 10 vigorous minutes can do wonders for your memory retention.

Here’s a fun way to make 10 minutes of vigorous exercise a day feel more like a memory workout: Do one dance a day.

In 1994, 13 years before the iPhone, IBM released a “personal communicator.” Its name was Simon.

The brick-like smartphone predecessor had a touchscreen, designed to be touched by a stylus, not a finger. It could check emails, send faxes, and even serve as an alarm clock.

It hardly perfected the art of mobile personal communication, but it was one of the earliest players to prove people wanted to do more than just talk on the go.

Thanks, Simon.

Take the insanity out of your inbox with Sanebox — no more letting your emails pile up for days. Try it free for 14 days without putting your credit card down.

GroupTogether is the easiest way to get a group gift and card together for a teammate. Their platform is free for unlimited people.

Checking in with your team promotes a healthy work culture — here’s an icebreaker that can help with that.

monday.com is the project management software that powers the world’s top brands — find out what all the buzz is about.

⭐ If you’re determining which project management tool is best for you, check out our report where we boil down the hundreds of tools to just 5.

🛍️ Q4 is off to the races! Here are tips to maximize ecomm profits.

🔖 Catch up on all OG Tuesday newsletters here.

🏪 The Assist Store: Check out our Etsy Store or get our most popular templates for free here.

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