Having trouble viewing this email? Read it online

Hi friend, 

Welcome to another issue of Postmark’s monthly newsletter, “Happy Sending,” in which we bring you industry news, useful tools, and tips for sending great emails—plus the occasional update about our product and what it can do for you. 

This month we share some thoughts on how to get (and stay) focused for deep work, and some tips on how to use Postmark as your SMTP server with Mastodon as well as growing a healthy email list. We also dive into the burning question: how many characters can a Postmark message tag have?

Industry news and useful tools

Today’s section is curated by Greg Svoboda. Greg is a Senior Developer Relations Engineer at ActiveCampaign. He loves writing tools in Python and Go that help other people. When he’s not writing code, he's game master for a "Magical Kitties Save The Day" campaign with his five daughters, and is currently teaching himself how to mix his own rocket fuel and play the banjo.

Greg also likes to geek out about tools and techniques that help him get more focused. If you want to get more focused as well, here are a few of his recommendations:

A Soft Murmur

As a software developer, I find ASoftMurmur.com to be a game-changer for my productivity. It allows me to create a serene audio backdrop tailored to my work environment, drowning out distractions and fostering deep concentration so I can stay in the zone. Once you experience it, you’ll be hooked–it's a surefire way to code with laser focus.

Greg’s Custom “Sunsets” Spotify Mix

9 hours long, all instrumental, all awesome. I’ve curated this mix for years, and it’s my go-to when I need to buckle down and get focused. Pro tip: Open my custom A Soft Murmur mix in a browser window, and play it along with this tracklist. You’ll thank me later.

The Pomodoro Technique:

Most developers have heard of the Pomodoro Technique, but it can only be experienced to be loved. I've found the Pomodoro Technique to be a lifesaver. As a former co-worker used to say “...today was a great day, I was crushing my ‘doros.”

Crush your own ‘doros by breaking tasks into manageable time intervals, maintaining a healthy work-life balance, and improving your focus over time. What’s not to love? If you're a fellow developer looking to enhance your workflow and maintain your sanity, I strongly recommend giving the Pomodoro Technique a shot. Pro Tip: Don’t use a timer on your phone. Picking up your phone can lead to distraction, so try one of these instead.

Will you share your story?

We love to publish our customers’ stories. Would you like to be featured next month? Fill in this quick and extremely yellow form, and we’ll make it happen.

The latest and greatest resources 

How to use Postmark as your SMTP provider with Mastodon

If you are running a Mastodon server then you will need an SMTP provider to deliver important transactional emails such as new account sign ups and password reset requests. In this guide, we give you all the details that you’ll need to configure Postmark as your Mastodon server’s SMTP provider.

How to collect emails: 15+ proven ways to grow your email list

Whether you are looking to grow a new list from scratch or already have a healthy list that you’d like to continue to grow, this article from our friends at ActiveCampaign is packed full of tips, tricks, and best practices that you can use to start growing your email list today.

DMARC monitoring with DMARC Digests

DMARC is a standard that prevents spammers from using your domains to send email without your permission. DMARC allows you to tell inbox providers to quarantine or reject emails that weren’t sent from a trusted source. Once you’ve set up a DMARC policy for your domains, inbox providers will start compiling daily reports detailing the DMARC compliance of emails they’ve received from your domains. DMARC Digests can process these reports for you, and display the data in a simple and easy to use interface to help you stay informed about the messages coming from your domains.

Behind the scenes at Postmark

Have you ever wondered about the largest character length we’ve received as a message tag? We haven’t ever thought about this either…until Ryan from the Postmark team stumbled across a case of a really long tag. What do you think: How long was that tag? Our own team’s guesses were all over the place (and not even close to the actual answer!)

Until next time, 

Happy sending 💛

What did you think of this email? 
                 🤷 Not my thing       😶 Okay        ❤️ Great!                 

Postmark, 1 North Dearborn St, 5th floor, Chicago, IL 60602, United States
Read this online – Unsubscribe