The Firehose. It’s an apt metaphor to understand the amount of information and data that hits our line of sight every single day — even about wine and the wine industry. Day after day the gush and force of wine industry-related information is intense. Articles, blogs, magazines, website, Substacks, social media, emails, and, yes, newsletters like this inundate us.
The question isn’t do we need to keep up with wine industry-related information. Of course, we do. But how, without spending your entire day knee deep in articles and data?
We think there is a formula for staying up on wine industry news without committee half your day to the task and coming away informed and ready to use the news that matters to you.
1. Embrace the Curators
Why not let others sift through the news for you and send you just the most relevant? We endorse four different curated daily wine industry news emails that will arrive in your email box with a selection of articles they have culled from amongst the many.
Mark Brown’s Industry News Update
Wine Industry Network’s Afternoon Brief News
Each of these curated emails include wine industry trade news from the past 24 hours. While they sometimes highlight the same stories, they each also deliver links to articles that did not show up in the others. Read together, they provide a fairly comprehensive compilation of the wine industry news. Click on the titles above to subscribe. They are all free.
2. Always Skim First
When first reading through the newsletters listed above, just skim. Look for the most interesting and relevant articles for you and your business. They idea is to identify those articles you think you need to read more carefully and set them aside for dedicated reading time. A good strategy for setting aside now for what you’ll read later is to open a new email and type in your own email in the “to” box. Copy the link of the article you want to save for later and paste into the body of the email. Then send it to yourself. In this way you can delete the original email newsletters but have what you need for later.
3. Set Aside Time to Delve Deep
If you’ve taken our #2 advice, you likely have four or five links to article embedded in an email addressed to yourself, each of which merit a full reading. The key is to try to set aside time each day to dedicate to reading each of them undisturbed (if that’s ever possible!). Finding a half hour either in the morning or at the end of the day both serve as good moments to set aside for bringing yourself up today. The key, however, is to get in the habit
4. Read with Intention
It’s not enough to read just to stay up to date on what’s happening in the wine industry. It’s imperative to read with the intent of capturing information and ideas that help you do your job better or serve your customers more fully. There is a trick to this. Before you start to delve into any article you’ve set aside, ask yourself a simple question: “How Can I Use This News?” It’s not so much a directive as it is a way to prompt your mind to read with intention. Simply asking this question before diving in the article is enough to focus your attention not only on the content of the article but also to its meaning for you and your business. Try it. You’ll be amazed at how simply asking the questions focuses your reading.
“Short cuts” are often denigrated by others as things you shouldn’t or just can’t take. That’s a bunch of hooey. Short cuts that work are no more than easy productivity. Making easy, productive use of the time you dedicate to your profession is especially important when it comes to tasks that are repetitious, like reading the news of your industry.
Incorporate the above strategy for staying abreast of the news and moves in the wine industry while plucking out the nuggets you can use will make your life much better and your day far more productive.
