✏️ Field Note #2: Three Subtle Ways to Respect Your Reader’s Time
Subscriptions and Mirroring Identity
From my place to yours: prompts, context, and usable insight. Field Notes takes what we’ve explored in Working Theory and brings it into the real world, your writing, your practice, your communities. Always grounded, always yours to adapt.
You made a thing.
You sent it out.
Someone opened it.
That’s not small.
And yet, most of us, especially in the early days of building paid or sustained subscription models aren’t quite sure how to talk about that.
We thank people, wmight apologise for taking up their time but we often miss something far more valuable: the chance to help our reader feel good about the time, trust, and attention they’ve just offered us.
In Working Theory: What’s Really Going On With Subscriptions?, we explored the psychology behind this. Research on self-reinforcing behaviours (Kwasnicka et al., 2016) shows that when people reflect positively on something they’ve done, like showing up for a workout, or reading a post that made them think they’re more likely to do it again.
So if we, as writers, can build in gentle moments of reflection not as engagement tricks, but as small acts of care, we’re not just helping our work “stick.” We’re honouring the labour of being a reader.
1. Don’t Just Say Thanks. Close with Intention.
There’s nothing wrong with “thanks for reading” but sometimes it feels like a default, not a gesture. One small shift is to close with something the reader can carry, a phrase that gives closure and reinforces meaning. Psychologically, this taps into episodic memory: we’re more likely to recall moments that feel complete.
You don’t need a formal sign-off. Just something that acknowledges: this mattered.
Examples: