Teaching course

A five-day teaching course, written out in full

5 emails, one a day · Last reviewed 19 September 2026

This is a five-day course for teaching one method. Day one takes away a belief, day two does the groundwork almost everybody skips, day three is the method written out in full, day four is what goes wrong and how to spot it early, and day five shows the reader what they have and makes one ask. All five emails are below, subject lines and all.

It is the shape this format is named after, and it suits somebody with a method to teach rather than a product to launch. Five mornings, one thing to do each morning, and something finished by the end of the week.

What shape this is

The five days are one argument rather than five topics. Day one makes the reader doubt something they already believed, which is what makes day two worth twenty unglamorous minutes, which is what day three stands on. Reordering them does not produce a different course, it produces a course that does not land.

There is one call to action and it is repeated: open the worksheet and do today's step. Five different asks across five days is a sales sequence wearing a course as a costume, and a reader can tell by day three.

What each morning does:

Day one takes away the assumption that makes the subject harder than it is, and hands over a two-minute task, so the reader has started before deciding to.
Day two is the groundwork step that produces nothing anybody can see, with the warning that it will feel like nothing is happening.
Day three is the method itself, start to finish, including the sentence the reader should be able to say out loud when it is done.
Day four is the four ways it goes wrong, each with its early warning sign. This is the email a brochure would not contain, which is roughly why it is the most useful one.
Day five compares what the reader has now with the piece of paper from day one, and then makes one invitation, once.

Who it suits

Somebody who teaches a method: a coach with a diagnosis, a developer with a workflow, a bookkeeper with a month-end routine. The test is whether a reader could run the thing themselves inside a week and know whether it worked.

It suits you less well when what you sell is a product rather than a method, or when the useful version of your subject takes three months. A course promising a finished thing in five mornings that cannot deliver one spends the credit day one earned.

It needs four things from you before it is worth starting:

One belief your readers hold that you can honestly argue against.
One method small enough to write into a single email and large enough to be worth having.
A worksheet, or anything else a reader can write an answer on.
One honest invitation for day five, including who it is not for.

How this one is built

Read the five emails below as one object rather than as five and the repeated parts come out. Every email carries exactly one heading inside its body, so the instruction can be found by somebody who scrolled past the argument to get to it. Every email ends on something to do rather than on a farewell. And on four mornings out of five that instruction points at the same link, which is the single mechanical fact that turns five separate emails into a course.

What changes is the kind of list. The first three mornings set numbered lists, because each is asking for things to happen in an order and a bullet would say they could be done in any. Day four sets four bullets instead, because failure modes are a set to be checked against rather than a sequence to be worked through. Day five sets bullets too, and it is the only list in the course that describes the reader instead of instructing them.

Two of the five lift a sentence out into a pull quote, and both are load-bearing. On day two it is the line telling a reader that the boredom is the method working rather than the method failing, which is what buys day three. On day five it is the invitation, pulled out of its paragraph so that the one ask in the whole week cannot be scrolled past.

The subject lines are the other half of the structure, and printed together above the course they can be read as a set. All five carry the same numbered prefix, so a reader glancing at an inbox knows where they are in the week before opening anything. Exactly one of the five contains a bracket, and it is the third, where the subject line is the name of the method itself.

Every preheader then says something its subject line does not. It is the second line in an inbox list and it is wasted whenever it repeats the first, so the opening morning uses it to price the work at two minutes, the second to warn that the work is unglamorous, the fourth to say how many failure modes are coming, and the last to name the invitation before it arrives.

What stays the same from one morning to the next:

One heading inside the body, always, so the steps can be found without reading the paragraphs above them.
A subject line prefixed with its own number, so a reader who opens three of the five still knows which three.
One link, and on four mornings out of five it is the same worksheet. Day five is the only email pointing anywhere else.
A closing line that gives an instruction and then signs off in brackets, rather than a sign-off that trails away into nothing.
No greeting, no first name, no hope you are keeping well. Each of the five opens on its own subject inside the first six words.
Three of the five end by naming what arrives tomorrow. The exceptions are day four, which sends the reader to check their own work instead, and day five, where there is no tomorrow.

How to read the brackets

Everything in square brackets is a hole. The method, the numbers, the names and the invitation are all left out, and the sign-up copy is bracketed in the same way, so a course published without being read announces itself on its own sign-up page rather than reading as bland and finished.

The links are placeholders too. Each one points at a reserved documentation domain rather than at a real page, so they are printed below as the words they label rather than as links to follow: a course sent with them untouched would take strangers to somebody else's site in your name.

No email names a weekday, and that is not an oversight. Each course starts on the morning its reader confirms, so day three is a Saturday for one reader and a Tuesday for the next. Days are named by their number, and a weekday appears only inside a bracket, where it is a fact about you rather than about the reader.

The course itself, every email in order

Day 1

Day 1 of 5: the one thing to stop doing

Preheader: Two minutes and one piece of paper, and you have started.

Welcome to [the course title]. Five emails, one each morning, and by the fifth you will have [the outcome].

Here is what I want to take away from you first, because it is the belief that makes [the thing you teach] harder than it needs to be: [the common assumption]. It sounds responsible. It is also the reason most people stall, and the reason the obvious approach does not work.

What is actually true is narrower and more useful: [the reframe, in one sentence]. That is it. Everything in the next four mornings follows from it.

Today, in two minutes

You do not have to believe me yet. Do this instead, and it takes two minutes.

Get one piece of paper.
Write down [the concrete two-minute observation] exactly as it is today, not as you would like it to be.
Do not fix anything, do not tidy it, and do not look anything up.

That piece of paper is what days two to five work on. If you do nothing else this week, you still have something you did not have at breakfast.

Tomorrow: the step almost everyone skips, and why skipping it costs more than doing it.

Today: open [the one-page worksheet] and write down [the concrete two-minute observation]. — [your name]

Notes on this email

Take one belief away, and hand back a task too small to fail.

The email spends its first two paragraphs removing something rather than adding anything, which is worth noticing because it is only affordable here. The reader opted in this morning, so the writer has more credit on day one than on any other morning of the week, and this course spends all of it at once.

Then the numbered list, and the thing to look at is how small it is. Two of its three instructions are refusals: do not fix it, do not tidy it, do not look anything up. They are there because the predictable way a reader ruins the first morning is by improving a two-minute task into an hour-long one and then not starting it.

The sentence above the divider is insurance of a different kind. It tells a reader that if they do nothing else all week they still finish the morning holding something, which is aimed squarely at the person who will miss day two and conclude they have fallen out of the course.

What has to be right here

The reframe, which is one bracketed sentence and the only thing the other four mornings stand on. A reframe that is merely interesting rather than load-bearing leaves day three with nothing underneath it.

Day 2

Day 2 of 5: the step everyone skips

Preheader: Unglamorous, twenty minutes, and it decides the rest of the week.

Look at the paper from yesterday. Somewhere in it is the thing this email is about.

Almost everyone doing [the thing you teach] skips [the groundwork step], because it produces nothing you can show anybody and it takes twenty minutes. Then they spend weeks on the visible part, it does not hold, and they conclude that [the thing you teach] does not work for them.

It does work. It is just that [the groundwork step] is what the visible part stands on.

The whole of it, in three steps

[the first sub-step].
[the second sub-step], which is where people stop, so be warned that it will feel like nothing is happening.
[the third sub-step], and then stop for today even if it is going well, because tomorrow assumes this has settled.

Feeling like nothing is happening during [the second sub-step] is not a sign that it is going wrong. It is what it feels like when it is going right.

The test that you have done it properly is [the observable signal]. If you do not see that, the usual cause is [the usual cause], and the fix is [the fix].

Tomorrow is the one people come for: [the main method], written out in full.

Today: do all three steps on [the one-page worksheet]. — [your name]

Notes on this email

Ask for the dullest twenty minutes of the week, and say so first.

This is the only email in the course that warns a reader about how the work is going to feel. The warning is inside the second numbered step rather than in a paragraph underneath it, so a reader skimming for the instructions cannot miss it, and the pull quote below the list says the same thing again in a different register.

Saying it twice is the whole job of the email. Day two is where a reader decides nothing is happening and stops, and a sentence that predicts the feeling converts it from evidence into a symptom. What follows the quote is the observable signal, its usual cause and its fix, which is what keeps the prediction checkable rather than merely encouraging.

The instruction to stop is worth stealing. A reader is told to put it down for the day even if it is going well, which costs the writer some momentum and buys a day three that begins from a known position rather than from wherever an enthusiastic reader happened to get to.

What has to be right here

The observable signal. Without it a reader cannot tell a finished day two from an abandoned one, and every email after this assumes it was finished.

Day 3

Day 3 of 5: [the main method], in full

Preheader: The middle of the course, and the part you keep.

This is the email to save. Everything else in [the course title] exists to make this one work.

[the main method], start to finish

Start with [the input you need], which you already have from days one and two.
[the first move], which usually takes [the rough time].
[the second move]. The order matters: doing these two the other way round produces [the wrong result], which looks correct for about a week.

When you are done you should be able to say [the sentence a reader can now say] out loud and mean it. That sentence is the point of the method. If you cannot say it yet, you are missing [the missing input], which is worth going back for rather than pushing through.

Two notes

[the first note], which almost nobody is told.
[the second note], which is the difference between this working once and working every time.

Tomorrow: the four things that go wrong, and how to spot each of them early.

Today: work through [the main method] on [the one-page worksheet]. — [your name]

Notes on this email

Hand the method over as a reference, not as an argument.

The first line tells the reader to keep this one, and the rest of the email earns that by being written as a procedure. There is no persuasion anywhere in it: a heading, three numbered moves, a sentence the reader should be able to say out loud afterwards, and two short notes under a smaller heading.

The order warning inside the third step is the move most worth copying. It does not say the order matters. It says what doing the two moves the other way round produces, and adds that the wrong result looks correct for about a week. A warning with a shape and a timescale attached is one a reader can recognise later; a warning that says be careful is not.

The bold sentence is the only test in the course. If a reader cannot say it, the email names what they are missing and sends them backwards rather than forwards, which is the opposite of what an email under pressure to feel productive would do.

What has to be right here

The sentence a reader can now say out loud. It is the pass mark for the whole week, so it has to be something somebody can genuinely produce from memory rather than something they merely recognise when shown.

Day 4

Day 4 of 5: when it goes wrong

Preheader: Four failure modes, and the early warning for each.

A brochure would not include this email. That is roughly why it is the most useful one.

[the main method] fails in four recognisable ways, and all four are cheap to fix early and expensive to fix late.

The four, and the early sign of each

[the first failure mode]. The early sign is [the early sign], usually around [the timing]. Fix it by [the fix].
[the second failure mode], and it is the common one. It happens because [the cause], and the tell is [the tell]. Fix it by [the fix].
[the third failure mode]. It is not your fault and not always fixable; what you do instead is [the mitigation].
Doing everything correctly and getting no result for [the waiting period]. That is not a failure mode, it is the normal timeline, and it is on this list because it is where people abandon something that was working.

Today: run those four checks against what you built on [the one-page worksheet]. Most people find one. — [your name]

Notes on this email

Name the four ways it fails, on the morning there is work to check.

This is the only email that opens in italic, and the italic sentence admits what the email is. Under the heading there are four bullets rather than a numbered list, because a reader might meet any of the four first and a number would be claiming an order the subject does not have.

Three of the four are real faults. The fourth is not: doing everything correctly and getting nothing back for a while is the normal timeline, and it sits in a list of failures deliberately, because the place a reader abandons something that was working is exactly where it belongs.

There is no promise of tomorrow at the end of this one. The closing instruction sends a reader back to what they have already built with four checks to run against it, which is the first time all week the course asks them to inspect rather than add.

What has to be right here

The early signs. A failure mode with no early sign is a diagnosis after the damage, and this is the email that has to be usable before it.

Day 5

Day 5 of 5: what you have now

Preheader: Where you started, where you are, and one invitation.

Last one. Before you read any of this, go and find the paper from day one.

Then, and now

On day one: [the starting state].
Today: [the finished artefact], and you know [the main method] well enough to run it again without me.
And you know the four ways it goes wrong, and what each one looks like early enough to matter.

That is [the outcome], which is what this course promised on the sign-up page.

What to do next week, in one line: [the single next action], then leave it alone for [the interval]. The commonest mistake from here is [the post-course mistake].

One invitation, and it is the only one

[the single honest invitation: what it is, who it is for, what it costs, and what happens if they say no]

It is here if you want it: [the name of the thing]. If it is not for you, that is a complete answer, and the worksheet is yours to keep either way.

Thank you for five mornings. That is more attention than anyone owes a stranger. — [your name]

Notes on this email

Show the distance travelled, then ask once and stop.

The email opens by sending the reader away from it, to go and find the piece of paper from the first morning, which is the only thing that makes the comparison underneath mean anything. The three bullets then give where they were, what they have, and what they now know. It is the only list in the course that describes a reader rather than instructing one.

The invitation is set as a pull quote and bracketed as four things rather than one, which is the part a writer is most likely to shorten: what it is, who it is for, what it costs, and what happens if the answer is no. An invitation missing the last two of those is the sentence that turns a finished course into a funnel in its final paragraph.

What follows the quote gives permission to decline and says the worksheet is theirs either way. The last line names the reader attention as more than anyone owes a stranger, which is as close as this course comes to a flourish and is still a statement of fact.

What has to be right here

The honest exclusion. It is the half of the invitation that makes the other half believable, and it is the one bracket a writer will be tempted to leave empty.

What it asks for, and how often

Count the requests in the five emails and there are five, and four of them are the same one. Open the worksheet, do the step for today. The wording around it moves, the step changes, the link does not, and nothing else at all is requested in the first four mornings.

The fifth is the invitation, stated once, and the course never comes back to it. No reminder, no second chance, no final call. That is a real cost paid on purpose: a course that asks twice converts a little better on the second ask and stops being the thing its sign-up page said it was.

The five requests, in the order a reader meets them:

Write one observation on paper. Two minutes, and it is built so that failing it is difficult.
Do three sub-steps on the worksheet, and then stop for the day.
Work the method through, on the same worksheet, in the order given.
Run four checks against what is already on it, and expect to find one.
The invitation, with its price and its shape, and a complete answer available in the word no.

What is not here, and why

The guide this copy was written from carries a sixth email, sent the morning after the last one, asking a question and saying what the list is for from now on. It is not in the course above and that is not an omission. A course on this site is the emails it sends day by day, and a message that arrives after the course has ended is not one of its days.

Two other things a reader might expect are missing as well. Nothing anywhere is dated, so the copy does not go stale the way a course naming a year does. And there is no second link in any of the first four emails, which means there is nowhere in the teaching half of this course that a reader can be sent other than the worksheet.

What a writer usually adds to a course like this, and what it costs:

A second call to action beside the worksheet. It splits the one artefact the week is built on into two, and a reader finishes holding neither.
A softening sentence on day four. That email is useful precisely because it is the one a brochure would leave out, and the softening is what puts the brochure back.
A closing date on the invitation. Day five is the first and only time the course asks for anything, and an expiry a reader cannot verify is a poor thing to attach to it.
A weekday, anywhere. The course starts on the morning a reader confirms, so a named day is wrong for most of them and reads as carelessness to the rest.

A starting point, not a finished course

None of these is a course anybody could publish today. They are scaffolding: the order, the pacing and the sentences that hold five emails together, with every claim, number, method and name left out because those are the parts only you can write.

The writing is not done when the brackets are filled, either. A course that says something true about your own work will lose some of these paragraphs entirely and add others, and the day that reads worst in your own inbox is the one to rewrite first.

What you would write

What is in brackets in this course, and therefore what you write:

The assumption on day one, and the single sentence that replaces it.
The groundwork step on day two, its three sub-steps, and the signal that says it worked.
The method on day three, in the order the moves have to happen, and why that order matters.
The four failure modes, each with its early sign and its fix.
The invitation on day five: what it is, who it is for, what it costs, and what happens if the reader says no.

The other two

Welcome sequence
A five-email welcome sequence, written out in full
A five-email welcome sequence in full, from the delivery to the one ask, with a note under each email on the job it does and the link it carries.
Challenge
A five-day challenge, written out in full
A five-day challenge in full, one action a morning, with a note under each email on why that morning is built the way it is.

All three are on the examples index , the guides behind them are in the Guides to writing an email course, and what this site does with a course once it is written is on the home page.

Thinking of writing one of these?

5dayemail hosts a five-to-ten day email course: you write it once, and everyone who joins your list gets one email a day, in order, starting from the day they confirm.

Accounts are opened a few at a time rather than by signing up. Leave your address and you will be written to when the next ones open.

One message, when there is room. No course emails, no newsletter, and the address is not passed on. Ask and it is deleted; what is kept, and for how long, is in the privacy policy.