Friday miscellany: A lot of singing - Laura Vanderkam
Laura shares how choir rehearsals, music, and creative challenges enrich life beyond work — plus tips on follow-through and finding balance.| Laura Vanderkam
Monthly Archives: October 2025| Laura Vanderkam
This is going to be another doozy of a weekend, but with a lot of fun things planned. At first I worried it might feel like a bit much, but as I planned the weekend, I noted where my actual downtime is occurring and it isn’t zero, so that’s always good. I got some books […]| Laura Vanderkam
October is featuring a lot of great Before Breakfast guests! About a year ago I began doing one interview each week for that podcast. I talk with people about their expertise and how they structure their time to do all the amazing things they do. Today’s guest is Jenny Marrs, co-host of the HGTV show […]| Laura Vanderkam
Sarah and I know that reading is many people’s favorite leisure time activity. It can feel challenging to fit reading into a busy life…but it doesn’t have to be. In today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, we discuss our current reading lives, where we fit reading in (Sarah does it structurally in the morning […]| Laura Vanderkam
One of the items on my fall fun list was to go see my little brother in upstate NY (he lives about 25 minutes outside New Paltz). I hadn’t been up there in a while, and fall is always a beautiful time to visit. Indeed, my family went up there in both 2021 and 2022 […]| Laura Vanderkam
Life is featuring some circus-level logistics these days. That’s a reason I’m a big fan of making life easier whenever possible. As I’ve been making the schedule for next week, here are a few things I know make the logistics less complicated. The grocery store is 5 minutes away. About two years ago a nice […]| Laura Vanderkam
First, a note, since I know a lot of people who read me are also big Oliver Burkeman fans. I’m interviewing him today over at my Before Breakfast podcast, so please go check that out! Second, the essay below ran at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, a few months ago. To learn more, or to subscribe, […]| Laura Vanderkam
In the modern world, it is easy to compare and despair. Once, we only saw the lives of people around us. The proverbial Joneses had relatively similar living situations. Now, you can see the lifestyles of the rich and famous quite easily, and life can feel lackluster by comparison. Today’s guest on Best of Both […]| Laura Vanderkam
This was one of those weekends that involved making a lot of puzzle pieces fit together. The good news is that they mostly did — and we got some beautiful fall weather too. One big thing: J came home to visit! He needed to pick up a few winter things he hadn’t packed (Boston is […]| Laura Vanderkam
Laura shares how choir rehearsals, music, and creative challenges enrich life beyond work — plus tips on follow-through and finding balance.| Laura Vanderkam
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
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
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
