Why I Built Earmail

I created Earmail to solve a problem for me. I've signed up for a lot of newsletters and Substacks related to topics I'm interested in. I enjoy reading them, but often didn't have time, and so they'd pile up in my inbox. I didn't want to delete them and I didn't want to unsubscribe, but it started to feel like a chore to read them and I wasn't sure when I'd even have time to do it. Every now and then I'd try to speed-read them when I had a minute, but that wasn't doing justice to the content and it still wasn't helping me catch up.

But I realized that I often had a few spare minutes while I was out for a run or a walk, washing the dishes, or in the car, so I wanted to create a solution that could help me turn those articles into podcast episodes I could listen to. It'd help me catch up, get closer to the elusive inbox-zero, and turn time in front of the computer or iPhone into time when I was truly untethered from a screen.

That idea led to Earmail — it's been fun to create it and I've enjoyed its impact on my daily life, so I wanted to turn it into a product that could hopefully help others as much as it's helped me. If you have a chance to try it I hope you enjoy it — and if there's anything missing that you wish it could do, please send me a note — I'm always tinkering with it.

Jeff