Monthly Archives: September 2025| Laura Vanderkam
(Laura’s note: This post originally ran at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter. To learn more or subscribe, please visit here.) I know that many people reading a productivity blog are morning people. Probably a number of folks reading this have already gotten a workout in today. I’m a big fan of morning exercise, and for many […]| Laura Vanderkam
If you want to spend your time better, it helps to know where the time is going now. After all, if you don’t know where the time is going now, how do you know if you’re changing the right thing? As with all decisions, it helps to work from good data. The best way to […]| Laura Vanderkam
One of my favorite time management rules is to aim to have one big adventure and one little adventure each week. This is enough to make life feel memorable, but not upset any good routines that exist. This weekend my big adventure was going to a Phillies game on Friday night. This is my third […]| Laura Vanderkam
First a quick note: Are you doing the September Reset? We tracked time from Sept 8-14. Then we’ve been going through several of my favorite time management strategies: setting a bedtime, planning on Friday, building in adventures, building in space, and setting evening intentions. Thanks for reading the emails! If you’re doing the Reset, please […]| Laura Vanderkam
(Laura’s note: This post originally ran at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter. To subscribe, please go here.) Humans have a natural sense of fairness. We expect relationships to be reciprocal. And often they are! But it’s important to recognized that different people bring different things to a relationship. Some people are good at planning and organizing. […]| Laura Vanderkam
When Jen Hatmaker was last on Best of Both Worlds in April 2020, the world was shut down for the pandemic. Jen was discussing a previous book, little knowing that the opening scene of her new memoir, Awake, was about to happen. One night in the summer of 2020, she woke in the middle of […]| Laura Vanderkam
One of my goals for weekends is that everyone — including me — has something fun happening that they are excited about. This weekend all four kids who are still at home had get-togethers with friends. My husband ran a half marathon on Sunday. I was registered to run the half but did not, mostly […]| Laura Vanderkam
The back-to-school season always features a lot of extra stuff. For instance, I went to our kids’ fourth back-to-school night on Wednesday. My husband wound up at three of them last week while I was traveling. Yes, the 5th and 8th graders had different nights, despite being in the same school, which was in some […]| Laura Vanderkam
(LV’s note: A version of this post originally ran at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter. To subscribe, please go here.) Every year, as tax deadlines draw near — in October in my case, since we always file for an extension — I start lamenting that I’ll need to sort and add up my business expenses. There […]| Laura Vanderkam
A traffic jam derailed ninja class, but the September Reset tip to plan weekly adventures shows how changes can spark joy and break routines.| Laura Vanderkam
A midsummer check-in on Laura's 2025 summer fun list — from concerts and passports to choir tours, biking, and beach plans still to come.| Laura Vanderkam
Laura shares her 2024 Summer Fun List—from concerts and beach days to creative goals and launching her oldest off to college.| Laura Vanderkam
Labor Day marks summer’s end. I reflect on my 2025 Summer Fun List wins, misses, and what I’m planning for next year.| Laura Vanderkam
Revisiting favorite books offers fresh insights, new perspectives, and renewed joy. Here’s why re-reading can be as powerful as reading new titles.| Laura Vanderkam
Monthly Archives: July 2025| Laura Vanderkam
Four original July-themed sonnets capturing summer evenings, baseball, lakeside stillness, and firefly-lit nights in poetic iambic pentameter.| Laura Vanderkam
Yearly Archives: 2025| Laura Vanderkam
Beethoven backlog, skipping Prime Day, puzzle joy, and this week's podcast + newsletter highlights in one content-packed round-up.| Laura Vanderkam
Laura shares travel highlights from her 10-day France choir tour with her son, including music, food, and memorable moments.| Laura Vanderkam
Reflections on school concerts, musical milestones, and fresh time management tips from the podcast, blog, and newsletter this week.| Laura Vanderkam
It’s become a tradition around here. Every summer, I post a list of things I’d like to do before September comes. I hunted back through the archives, and I found a 2015 list. By 2016 I was saying that I did this “every year” so perhaps there was an earlier list that I haven’t found. […]| Laura Vanderkam
What else will they remember from this summer? What will I remember? This question of remembrance is a big reason I make a summer fun list each year.| Laura Vanderkam
Every year, I make a summer fun list (see last year’s here). Little adventures make life memorable. I do not want to get to September and wonder where the summer has gone. So I create a list of activities that will help me make memories, and will make summer feel like summer to me. This […]| Laura Vanderkam
Memorial Day weekend is almost here — which, in the US at least, signifies the start of summer. For the past several years, I’ve made summer fun lists. These activities celebrate the season. The goal is to hit Labor Day feeling like summer was rich and full of memories. Curiously, these lists become self-reinforcing. Certain […]| Laura Vanderkam
It’s that time again! Memorial Day is around the corner, and it’s time to start planning. Every summer, I make a list of activities that make summer feel like summer to me. The goal is to enjoy the season, and make copious memories by the time Labor Day rolls around. The more memories we have […]| Laura Vanderkam
For the past few years, I have observed a summer tradition: creating a list, in late spring, of things I want to do before Labor Day. Time passes whether we think about where it is going or not, and I find that thinking about what I want to spend time doing vastly increases the chances […]| Laura Vanderkam
June is the Friday night of summer. As with weekends, at the start they seem endless. Deep in, though, they feel fleeting. I want to make sure that my summers, like my weekends, feel full and good, and not like they have passed me by. We do plan vacations, which are great, but the smaller […]| Laura Vanderkam
In my umpteen years of blogging, I think I've written a post about how a long weekend with small children is not relaxing" many times.| Laura Vanderkam