December 16, 2025 • 34 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah introduce their Patreon curriculum for 2026, and then Sarah shares all about her new book, out TODAY!!! -- Best Laid Plans, a Simple System for Planning A Life That You Love. Learn about the book's origin story and what Sarah feels it adds to the productivity canon!
In the Q&A, a listener asks for ideas on how to track her reading.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Best of both Worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Best of both Worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in mid December of twenty twenty five.
We are mostly going to be talking best laid Plans today,
the exciting new book out from one Sarah hart Hunger.
We are looking forward to talking about that. But opening
we wanted to talk a little bit about our Patreon
curriculum for the upcoming year. So Sarah and I started
a Patreon community for Best of Both Worlds a few
(01:05):
years ago. Sarah, do you remember exactly what we were
thinking when we decided to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think we were just looking for a place to
have more of an interactive community, because, of course we
have comments on each of our blogs, but there was
nowhere that our listeners could just kind of come together
and even chat with each other on video in real time,
and you know, have it feel almost like a book
club of sorts, except that usually we're not talking about
a book.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, we're talking about many other topics. But we have
a great forum going. We have about two hundred members
at any given point, and so there's enough people that
you could have a robust discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
But one of the things.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That you know, Patreon is a paid community, but one
of the upsides of it being a paid community is
that it's not just out there on the Internet. It's
a very limited because of that, and so people feel
free to share tips and share stories and things that
they might not if it was just on one of
our blogs that anyone can see. So that sort of confidentiality,
(02:06):
I mean, it's a rough version of it, but it
helps a lot, I think, with a lot of us
wanting to discuss these topics. So anyway, if you've been
thinking about joining, we hope this will give you a
nudge to do. You can go to Patreon and search
for Best of Both Worlds podcasts. There will be links
in both of our blogs over the next few days
as well, but we wanted to talk about our curriculum
(02:28):
for the upcoming year.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, I feel like the term curriculum or personal curriculum
is trending, but I just want to point out that
we came up with a Patreon curriculum a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, we are ahead of the trend. So while we
do not have dates for all these yet, we tend
to set dates a little bit closer, you know, about
a month out for each of these discussions, and they're
always taped for people who can't make it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We wanted to make sure people knew what the topics were.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So in January, we're going to have our Best Laid
Plans book club.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We're going to be talking about Sarah's new book.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
We're going to be talking about planning systems, little tweaks
that can make our planning systems better.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So very excited about that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And keep in mind that none of our book club
meetups are assignments. You can absolutely read the book in
advance that we're going to talk about, but you can
also just come excited to learn a little bit about
whatever book we're talking about has to offer. So we're
not giving anyone, well, we might be giving people some
optional homework, but we never have any mandatory homework, let's
put it that way.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
In February we're going to be talking time trackings. This
comes out of my annual time tracking challenge that I
have in January, So if you kept a time log
for that and think you might like it analyzed, we
will be talking about a few people's time logs during
the discussion, but also just general tips for using time well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
March Sarah Weekly Planning Rituals.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, so this one is going to be a workshop
all about how we each plan our weeks and the
different ways that one might choose to do so, from
everything to when do we do it? To how detailed
is it? To inbox management to partner communications. So maybe
a little best laid plans type content there, but people
are always excited to talk about their systems, and I
(04:13):
feel like I learned so much every time I lead
one of these discussions because people share what they do
that works and there's so many key takeaways.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely, April we're going to be doing our Summer planning workshop,
talking all things summer fun, our camp spreadsheets, and so forth.
May will be the Big Time book Club. So my
book Big Time will be out in May, and we're
going to be having a interactive discussion about that June
Travel Hacks Sarah.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, so last year's we had a travel so some
of these are repeat topics and some of these are new.
And I have to say it, last year we had
such a fantastic discussion about travel that was great with
young kids, travel that made sense with older kids, and
I think a number of people ended up booking vacations
while they were attending the Zoom, which maybe wasn't exactly
what we have in mind, but I think there was
(05:01):
just so much inspiration to be had. So we'll focus
on the practical hacking and checking versus not checking. Maybe
even a little bit of cards and points hacking, although
that's much more min thing than Laura's. And then just
tons of ideas about how you can have fun in
different places in the country and the world with your family.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely, So July is going to be a video of
the two of us, sort of an exclusive episode that
we record each year for our Patreon community, where we
can sometimes talk about topics that we would not talk
about on the air. Then August is back to school
and everyone's favorite topic meal planning, Sarah, you're a fan
(05:39):
of meal planning.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I am a fan of meal planning and I like
talking about it and so does everyone else. By the way,
you get access to all our old stuff whenever you join.
So if you're like, I want to know what you
guys said in your July video in twenty twenty five,
if you join now, you can see all our old
secret ish Yeah secret is I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Mean, I'm still playing for storage on Zoom, so you
may as well watch the video while it's there. So yeah,
and then September we'll be take one night for you
talking about hobbies. We will also likely read reading the
book The Power of Fun, so looking forward to that October.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Superficial Things, Sarah, this is always a hit.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yes, there are some outlets where you can talk about
products and things, but.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Not that many where nobody's sharing any paid links. Except
for this.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We all come in Laura and I plus everybody in
Patreon with some of our favorite things. Nothing is sponsored content,
nothing is click here and get through my shopping portal whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's just like, these are things we're loving.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And this is another one where there may be some
commerce happening, a.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Lot of shopping during the actual episode.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's definitely an episode where plenty of shopping happens, often
in real time.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I wound up buying a BB cream that I
have been using as a result of somebody else's recommendation.
So that was pretty exciting, if vaguely expensive. November is
our holiday planning workshop. We had so much fun with
this one this year, you know, making our holiday fun lists,
talking about gifts that we wanted to ask for.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I mean, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
People are going to give you something, it may as
well be something you want, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yes, I definitely felt much more in the holiday mood
after we did this episode, so or this group, so
I know that the listeners do too.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And then every December, Sarah leads us in a goal
setting workshop. So this is a light version of both
Best Laid Plans at Home Bestlaid Plans Live.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But even if you went to Best Laid Plans Live,
you may.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Have started your goal list for the next year, but
you want to refine it and have a few more
minutes to think about it and talk about it with people.
So we do this every December. It is a big hit.
You're going to love it. So anyway, that's what we
are going to be talking about in Patreon over the
next year, So please come join us. We'd love to
have you, and we will be talking about all those things.
(07:55):
So onward to Best Laid Plans. Sarah, it's exciting you
have book coming out today, right, and the CS airing,
I do that was a great coincidence.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I think every book that we write should come out
on a Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, I think they normally do at this point, which
is interesting because when I first started writing books, they
came out on Thursdays, and then there was an entire
industry switch to Tuesdays weirdly enough, but now they are
so all our books are coming out on days that
we have bestli with the best of both worlds.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
I love it. Well, yes, I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I'm going to admit that as this episode airs, I'm
going to be on call and perhaps.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Not as focused on the book, but as soon as.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
That week is over, I think I'll be just celebrating
and super super excited to have it out in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Because Sarah's book, Best Like Plans, I mean, this came
out of a long time of sort of dreaming and
schaming and thinking about sharing your ideas with the world.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I mean, where did the idea to write a book
come from?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
You? Not just kidding.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
I've had it on my one hundred dreams or life
bucket list for so long now that I almost can't
tell you exactly where I first thought of it. I
do remember this one conversation I had with a novelist
who was also a pediatric surgeon who worked at the
same health system where I work. Where we were at
some party and I learned that he wrote books, and
I said something like I want to write a book,
and I think it was my first sort of public
(09:21):
declaration of that in real life. And he looked at
me and he said, well, what about? And I said planning?
And then I realized, oh, man, I really need to
work on my elevator pitch, because like just hearing that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Sound like much.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
But then, over the course of talking about planning many
many episodes teaching it to others, the book took shape
in terms of what I wanted my book to be
about and the messages I wanted to have within.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So the dream has been a really long time calming,
and then.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The ideas really shaped gradually over I would say almost
the last decade.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, because I mean I think this had been a
goal that you kept coming back to and you're like, oh,
I'm going to try to do it. I'm going to
try and do it this year. I mean, WHOA what
sort of pushed you forward on this? Well?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What pushes anyone forward on any goal. I actually had
this really revelatory or at least to myself, blog post
that I wrote a while back where I analyzed several
goals that were just sitting there and not moving forward.
And those goals are a state, planning, a book proposal,
and cleaning our house. So anyway, maybe not all of
(10:24):
them have yet to come to fruition. But it just
occurred to me that the missing ingredients with these goals
for me were the accountability and the urgency piece. I
didn't have someone that I was like reporting back to
that gave me specific due dates where there would be
consequences either monetary or just losing face if I didn't
follow through on what I set out to do.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
For me, that was the missing ingredient.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
There were also some other things I thought about, like
when a project is just too big or too daunting
and there's too much fear of failure, and so I
kind of worked on each of those elements as well,
but I do think the accountability was the biggest piece,
and for a state planning, I ended up hiring a
lawyer that I then said, I want you to give
me assignments. I want to set up in person meetings
where we have to get things done before the meeting,
and like we get charged if we don't come, you know,
(11:08):
or it would be very embarrassing to move things.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
And that ended up allowing.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Us to check this task off the list after it
festered for years.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Josh and I knew something we wanted to do and
then didn't do.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It, and the book was similar, and I was thinking
about starting to query agents and kind of looking out
into the world, but then lightning struck, I guess, and
I talked about it on my podcast, and a editor
from a well known publishing house, Source Books, actually emailed
me and I think we'll take a break and I'll
tell the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
All right, Well, let's take a break. Well we are
back talking about best Like Plans, the book, not the podcast,
because there is now a book out in the world
(11:59):
by doctor Sarah hart Unker that is sharing with us
a plan for creating the life we love. So, Sarah,
you are saying you had this on your list for
years and then you got an email from an editor
who had listened to your show and you heard you
talking about this and said, whoa, we'd be interested in
talking about this.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So what happened then?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So then we set up a zoom meeting and she
told me, we're interested, we like the topic idea, we
see you have an audience, but we're going to need
a formal proposal.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
And she had a timeline in mind.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
She said, if we were going to release this book
in January of twenty twenty six, I know it's December
of twenty five, but originally we were thinking January twenty six,
then I would need that proposal by I think it
was August of twenty twenty four. She was able because
she's in the industry to think backwards and exactly how
many months each step would take, and at the time,
I think it was something like June. I'm making these
exact dates up, but it was not a ton of time,
(12:52):
which was perfect because I think if she had given
me eight months, I might have spun my wheels for
a really long time. But it was tight enough that
I was like, Wow, a fire has been lit. A
person wants this structured item from me. And the other
thing that I did when I knew I had to
write the book proposal or I really wanted to write
the book proposal, is it was able to get a
template off someone else's book proposal, which was about something
(13:14):
totally unrelated to planning.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
It was about like bird migration.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
But it allowed me to see that along with the
nonfiction book blueprint for a nonfiction book proposal, I think
by Jenny Nash. So I combined those two resources and
created a checklist that made the whole thing less daunting.
I knew I had to complete these twelve sections or
whatever they were, and I had two months to do it.
So I was finally able to chunk this task up
into something less terrifying than write book proposal. I already
(13:41):
had a due date, I had a timeline, and it
had been broken up smaller, and so I would say
those things all came together and finally allowed me to
move forward with bestly plans.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Well, and for anyone who's thinking of writing a nonfiction book, yeah,
the proposal is a key stage of it. But you
don't have to invent this out of whole cloth. I
mean there are tons of resources out there, like you
could just google how do I write a book proposal,
and you'll find ones, and there are books of successful
book proposals, for instance, that you can look at. And
(14:13):
the general idea is you are trying to convince agents
and publishers why the world needs this book, you know,
and then why you are the person to write it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It is a marketing document, more or less.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And so Sarah created one of these, and happily enough,
her publisher decided to go through with it because you
had all the material from the courses you'd been teaching
at that point.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right, Yeah, there was definitely an element of readiness as well.
And fun fact, someone else from source Books who's now
higher up there, even had reached out to me in
twenty eighteen with a similar query. And I don't think
it's a coincidence because Source Books is a very female
led organization and they're always looking for strong woman voices
and they had been interested prior, but I wasn't ready.
(14:58):
I think it took many rounds of teaching my content
to others to really make it more cohesive, to understand
what was actually valuable in practice to individuals, and just
to make me feel like enough of an expert that
I could sell myself into writing this book. I think
I tried to put pen to paper to write that
proposal in twenty eighteen and realized I just wasn't there yet.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, because you need the content to write a book.
And you know somebody who said write a book about planning,
You're like, okay, where are the systems? Right? I just
here's what I do every week. But you know, can't
really make sixty thousand words out of that. So yeah,
Then happily source book accepted the proposal, and you had
to turn it around quite quickly, right, I mean, I've
seen your time logs.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
There's not a ton of room for writing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yes, I believe it was due initially something like January,
and it was able to push it to February. And
this was starting in September or October. So I did
have a few chapters already written as they had been
included in my proposal as sample chapters, and didn't have
to change too much to the point of completing the book.
But there there was a lot to do it in
a little time. I think the timeline would have been
(16:03):
relatively daunting to even someone who had a full time
job as a writer, and I absolutely do not. The
thing that I did have on my side was again,
I had taught that content to a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
A lot of times.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I had PowerPoint presentations kind of almost an outline form
of my book, because a lot of the material came
from the concepts that I taught and tweaked and refined
in Best Laid Plans Academy, and so I was able
to use that as templates for parts of the book.
Then there were other sections I really had to write
from scratch, and I filled in the cracks of my
life with writing. It was a very busy time. I
(16:37):
don't really want to work that many hours per week normally,
but I'm so glad in retrospect that I did, including
the hours I spent writing while we were on our
family vacation in Montana. I wrote after skiing. I wrote
on the plane because again my dutate was looming, and
at the time I wasn't entirely thrilled about it. But again,
(16:57):
once I finished, that feeling of satisfaction having completed something
that I was so proud of, it felt very worth it.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I mean, well, we can always push for a
little bit with anything, and that doesn't mean you have
to do it for the rest of your life. But
if you have something big you want to do, sometimes
it does take some extra hours. And you know, you
spend a lot of time with your family, so it's
not like, you know, it's world's greatest tragedy to take
a few hours on a ski trip to write. But
let's talk about what is actually in the book, because
(17:25):
I'm sure we have some people listening to this who
are saying, Okay, well, Sarah, I am a faithful listener
of the Best Laid Plans podcast. What am I going
to get in the book that I'm not getting by
listening to you every week?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So the book is structured as the introduction tells you
the sort of three key items that I think everyone
needs to plan, and that part's not going to be
brand new to you. I talk about air tight task management,
I talk about in calendar, and I talk about goal setting.
Then there are detailed, detailed descriptions more so than I
get into the podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
With a little bit more personal sharing.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think as well about each of those time horizons
of goal setting and planning, So I go from all
the way from the year down to the day, and
then there's a series of chapters that really aren't things
I've necessarily gone into detail about on the podcast, like
struggles that people have in meeting goals, struggles they have
within planning itself, the things like planner privilege that I've
touched on but certainly haven't written as in depth as
(18:21):
I do in the book. And then finally, there is
a section at the end where I go through vignettes
of people who graciously shared their.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Kind of take on my systems with me.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So these are real people, most of them I know
in some way in real life, that go through how
did they do their task management, how do they do
their version of netted goals? What elements from my system
do they incorporate, what does not work for them? Do
they use paper, digital or both? So those vignettes are
I think one of my favorite parts of the book.
And then finally, the book contains checklists at every single level,
(18:53):
so I think it could be a really valuable reference
for some people who just want a guided way of
going through their planning on the daily, week, clean, monthly, seasonal,
and annual level.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Those checklists are convenient.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I hope people write all over the book or make
copies or do whatever they need to do. But I
think that they're going to be very practical for people.
I really envision this book as if I was going
to kind of compare to any other book out there,
I probably would say getting things done. And obviously that's
a very high pedestal. It's a very popular book that's
sold nine jillion copies, but that's kind of the structure.
(19:28):
It's a very complete system, and you're allowed to take,
of course, elements from that system that resonate with you
and leave the ones that don't. But if you're looking
for the entire package of here's a way you could
plan everything, and here are ways that you might think
about troubleshooting if things aren't working, then you will find
that in Bestaid Plans the book.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, absolutely, it's a comprehensive system, similar to David Allen
was offering a comprehensive system for people trying to organize
their lives. So if your life looks a little bit
more like Sarah's, then you might find this helpful. Speaking
of which Sarah, I mean planning privilege is one of
these concepts that you have put out there that I
would assign your name to this when you talk about it,
(20:09):
because well, what is this and let's talk a little
bit about what that is.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Sure, So I noticed a phenomenon, particularly in couples with
a male half and a female half, though it absolutely
is not specific to that, where one partner more typically
the female ends up doing a lot of the planning
for the family, and the other partner is either obstructive
or just devalues that work by saying things like why
do we have to be so structured? I don't want
(20:36):
to be so regimented. I just want to live freely.
You're spending a lot of work stressing yourself out for nothing.
And sometimes these come from a place of watching their
partner maybe do a lot of work planning and seeing
that it takes time, and maybe they'd rather their partner
be a little bit more relaxed. But the part that
they're missing is that without those efforts, probably a lot
of little pieces of life that they take for granted
(20:57):
might just not happen. And I don't necessarily advocate that
people move to a shared load model in the planning,
because it's often that one person just has a little
bit more inclination than the others. But it's more to
make this work visible and valued and make sure that
there is an air of cooperation about it rather than
an air of disdain. I think that sometimes this can
(21:20):
go as deep as hurting relationships, and other times it's
more about someone just feeling like they're not supported despite
wanting to put a lot of effort into making their
families life run smoothly. So planning privilege is something I
talk about. I do think it's a treatable condition, and
I think the more that people talk about what kinds
of systems they are doing for their family and what
(21:43):
those benefits might be, the less planning privilege is a problem.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I mean, if you think about it, nobody thinks in
their professional life, well, let's just see what happens and
we'll find out what our sales are for this year.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
At the end, it'll be exciting. We'll be spontaneous about it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, And you know, on a kind of best of
both worlds angle, being spontaneous when you have young kids
almost always involves childcare, and if you are the parent
who's not the default plarent, then maybe being spontaneous is great,
because you could just be like, well, the defaults got
the kids, so I'll just pop out for a spontaneous
round of golf with my friends. But if you are
the default parent, then spontaneous means you are never gonna
(22:22):
really feel like you can.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Have a break.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So that's kind of another layer of how planning privilege
might be interpreted.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Absolutely, well, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more on Best
Laid Plans.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
The book.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, we are back talking about Sarah's new book, Best
Laid Plans. Encourage you to pick it up. It is
out today, so you can go order a copy as
you are listening to this, or stop by your local
bookstore figure out where you can and get that. You
had pre order bittises but Sarah like, it's out today, right,
I mean, we can't pre order anymore.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The book is out today, That is true.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I really do want to thank everyone who did pre order,
and who knows, maybe I'll be able to share bits
of what I provided to my pre order fans and
supporters in the future, but really, thank you so much
to anyone who's even considering taking this book out from
the library. Purchasing it, I don't know, sharing it on
social media, whatever you can do.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Is there a world tour planned? I mean, what are
you going to be doing to promote it?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I will be doing my usual, which is hopefully appearing
on podcasts and sharing on my website and obviously on
our Patreon and other platforms. I don't know about how
many in the wild opportunities I will have. A lot
of bookstores are pretty selective about who they will have.
I know, the better that the book does, the more
(23:54):
likely I may be able to make some appearances. If
anyone listening this has tied or owns a great bookstore
somewhere and wants to have me share about the book,
we could possibly make that happen.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
So let me know. My email is my name, Sarah
Hartunger at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and in general, anyone who has a social media following,
you know, anyone who like shares things you enjoy with
the world, We would love if you could take a
picture of the book, talk about reading it, post a
review on any of the reading sites I mean, Amazon, Goodreads,
et cetera. If you have a newsletter, we would be
(24:32):
thrilled to have you share news of the book in there,
anything you could do to spread the word. I can
tell you, having been through this a few times, that
word of mouth is extremely helpful. And there's nothing that
sells a book beyond people being excited about it and
sharing it with other readers and deciding that they want
to have it too. So congrats, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
I'm so so excited and I appreciate all you have
done to share the book. Laura.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Fun to watch this journey, to see a goal come
to fruition over many years and make it happen. I mean,
this is a testament to the power of setting goals
and then being patient on the timeline, but knowing that
eventually it will happen.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
So go pick up a copy.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And now onto our Q and A. On a book note, Sarah,
where or how do you track your reading?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
So I have on my website, on my blog a
page that just says like twenty twenty five books, and
then it has dropped down so you can see past years.
I started doing this in twenty twenty. I used to
have paper systems of tracking, but I wanted something for
reading that would be long term. I feel like it's
actually one of my greatest life regrets that I did
not start tracking my reading earlier. But you know, twenty
(25:50):
twenty that's not a terrible time to start.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I'm curious why would it be a regret it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Do you think there was a book you read in
two thousand and nine that you're so excited about you
can't remember the title now.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I would just love to be able to see what
I was reading back then. I think it would be
so interesting. I mean, I guess I could. I've probably
mentioned a lot of the books I've read on my blog.
I could maybe ask AI to create it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Could probably make a list.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It could craze on all your blog posts and pull
titles from all of us.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It would have tons of errors, but it would still
be super interesting. So maybe I will do that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, you could go in and correct the record, right,
like I mean, you can see like I mean, because
who knows. You may have referred to it by not
entirely the right name, or said something you know, like
how people do, and it would have no good way
of knowing sometimes if what was a book or something else.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But it could work.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Yeah, what about you? Do you track your reading?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I used to briefly from about twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen,
which perhaps long time readers might recall as something of
a reading renaissance in my life. But I went through
and I actually read a lot of the books on
my sort of reading bucket list during that period of time,
(27:09):
and so I was tracking it, writing down the titles
I had read during that time, and I think at
twenty seventeen, I probably I mean, I read well over
one hundred books, and some of those were I mean
literally Warren Peace, Kristin Lavern's Zatter one Q eighty four.
I mean those were all on the list in twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen. I mean I also have reread Ulysses, I
(27:30):
read Moby Dick, I read you know, all the.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Other like the Middle March, all the other big ones.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
And then I think by twenty nineteen I was kind
of like, okay, not that there are no more books
to read in life, but I read a lot of
the ones that were initially on my list of like
the greatest hits that I hadn't read. So I either
needed to start making a new list or I don't know,
And I kind of lost intensity at that point, and
then life happened. We had Henry, you know, the pandemic.
(27:58):
I didn't wind up continuing with tracking reading. I would say,
I don't know if it would improve my reading life
or not. It's just not something I felt a huge
need to do. But I know a lot of people
do enjoy it for the reasons you said. I mean,
you don't like to see what you've read, or maybe
some people find the numbers exciting.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Do you think it's that For.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Me, it's not really the numbers, and I seem to
read the same number of books no matter what I do,
So it's more I think I really like being able
to at the end of the year reflect back, Oh,
these were my five favorites, and these are the ones
that I go to to recommend, or these are the
ones that I might want to revisit again. I think
it's more about the actual titles themselves, and also just
looking for patterns, like, oh, wow, in that year I
read all these books about mindfulness, but then in that
(28:40):
year all my nonfiction was about digital distractions, Like I
just think that's super fascinating.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I feel like I'm so almost surprised.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
You don't build the reading log into your timelog, but
that would go against your tenet that keeping the timelog
very simple is what allows it to be so incredibly
sustainable for you.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it does. And I mean I started.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Putting like how many miles I had run on that,
but that wasn't when I first started like that took
another year or two before I was like, okay, well
if I run, I'll put the distance next to it,
so I have then a record of that. But I
didn't do the books. And you know I could. I
could put it in, but I don't know. I mean,
(29:22):
some of them aren't that memorable. Yeah, we'll get back
to you.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
But you know, if anyone's looking for how do you
do this? I mean obviously you can use anything.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I mean, you could just keep a notebook that you
list the titles and authors and maybe a thought on it,
like if you want to remember, like did you like
the book? I mean, that might be one of the
reasons to track is to remember did I like this book?
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Did I not like this book? Or what did I
like about this book? Because that might help you find
similar books in the near future.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
So one hack for that is that. And I learned
this from one of the book podcasts. But there's like
these detailed spreadsheets and one column some people is who
recommended this book or what specific imprint the book was
from a publishing house. So keeping track of those things
will help you figure out ooh, every time Jenny recommends
a book, I'm devouring it so that you will be
(30:12):
more likely to.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Whereas Karen's recommendations just don't land.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
So you can, poor Karen.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Take that with a grain of salt next time she
is recommending a book.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, no, that would be a good hack. Or even
just the star rating.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
You know, out of ten stars or five stars, whatever,
like how you thought of this book or you know
it was this seven out of ten or you know
nine out of ten or two out of ten, like
then I hope you don't finish it. Or some people
use good Reads for tracking their reading their shelf, like
what they would like to read, So they could do
this digitally and share it as a form of social
media as well, if you'd be you'd be.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Into or story graph that's the big competitor I think
these days.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, so any other that would work. Sarah, what's your
love of the week this week?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, my love of the week is hmm, I hadn't
written oh the inspiration of the Board countdown of the
top twenty one holiday albums released in the twenty first century.
I'm having a lot of fun with that. I mean,
as this airs, there are nine days till Christmas, so
you could do two to three a day and get
(31:15):
through all of them.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I mean there's a lot of hours in a day
you could do this.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
So so far, highlights have probably been I mean, Casey
Musgraves already knew I loved that, but I was glad
to see it on the list, and surprisingly good Michael Bublet,
I mean, maybe not surprising to some people, but I
think of him as just so cheesy. But with holiday music,
it just kind of worked.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's what you want. You want the cheesiness.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, well, I mean, listening to three of those albums
a day, you might be getting a lot of Oh
Holy Night, so.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Just brace yourself for that.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But if you have a lot of long car trips,
or you know, you're wrapping presents, that maybe could keep
you entertained, or you could just fast forward through Oh
Holy Night. So my love of the week is fancy Tree.
So we now have two Christmas trees. Actually we have
more than two Christmas trees, because Ruth has a Christmas
tree as well. But there are two full sized Christmas
(32:09):
trees in our house. We have the live tree that
we get from the fire station every year, and that
one we decorate with all the old ornaments, the colorful lights,
all that good stuff. Then I have the fancy tree
in the formal living room, which is a one of
those artificial but from like the high end companies or whatever,
and it's got the white lights and the glowy ornaments
(32:32):
and all matching and such, and I enjoy that, Like
that's the kind of tree I never had, what the
elegant tree. The elegant tree, I call it the fancy tree.
But that just adds to my holiday joy. And then
I don't feel the need to police the family tree
in any way, Like it can have whatever you want, it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Can have the colorful lights.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I don't care, because I have my tree that has
the sort of calm, neutral esthetic that you would see
in a magazine.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
My kids are actually sad that they're not going to
get to decorate your tree this year, Laura.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
But we'd love to have them. Maybe it's already decorated
but maybe in the future. We would love to have
them back any Thanksgiving you guys wind up here that
can be part of our extravaganza.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been
talking best laid Plans the.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Book which is out today, so encourage you to go
pick up a copy of Sarah's new book and we
will be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Please join us next time for more on making work
and life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to Best of both Worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to Best of both Worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in mid December of twenty twenty five.
We are mostly going to be talking best laid Plans today,
the exciting new book out from one Sarah hart Hunger.
We are looking forward to talking about that. But opening
we wanted to talk a little bit about our Patreon
curriculum for the upcoming year. So Sarah and I started
a Patreon community for Best of Both Worlds a few
(01:05):
years ago. Sarah, do you remember exactly what we were
thinking when we decided to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I think we were just looking for a place to
have more of an interactive community, because, of course we
have comments on each of our blogs, but there was
nowhere that our listeners could just kind of come together
and even chat with each other on video in real time,
and you know, have it feel almost like a book
club of sorts, except that usually we're not talking about
a book.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, we're talking about many other topics. But we have
a great forum going. We have about two hundred members
at any given point, and so there's enough people that
you could have a robust discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
But one of the things.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
That you know, Patreon is a paid community, but one
of the upsides of it being a paid community is
that it's not just out there on the Internet. It's
a very limited because of that, and so people feel
free to share tips and share stories and things that
they might not if it was just on one of
our blogs that anyone can see. So that sort of confidentiality,
(02:06):
I mean, it's a rough version of it, but it
helps a lot, I think, with a lot of us
wanting to discuss these topics. So anyway, if you've been
thinking about joining, we hope this will give you a
nudge to do. You can go to Patreon and search
for Best of Both Worlds podcasts. There will be links
in both of our blogs over the next few days
as well, but we wanted to talk about our curriculum
(02:28):
for the upcoming year.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yes, I feel like the term curriculum or personal curriculum
is trending, but I just want to point out that
we came up with a Patreon curriculum a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yes, we are ahead of the trend. So while we
do not have dates for all these yet, we tend
to set dates a little bit closer, you know, about
a month out for each of these discussions, and they're
always taped for people who can't make it.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
We wanted to make sure people knew what the topics were.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So in January, we're going to have our Best Laid
Plans book club.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
We're going to be talking about Sarah's new book.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
We're going to be talking about planning systems, little tweaks
that can make our planning systems better.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
So very excited about that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
And keep in mind that none of our book club
meetups are assignments. You can absolutely read the book in
advance that we're going to talk about, but you can
also just come excited to learn a little bit about
whatever book we're talking about has to offer. So we're
not giving anyone, well, we might be giving people some
optional homework, but we never have any mandatory homework, let's
put it that way.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
In February we're going to be talking time trackings. This
comes out of my annual time tracking challenge that I
have in January, So if you kept a time log
for that and think you might like it analyzed, we
will be talking about a few people's time logs during
the discussion, but also just general tips for using time well.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
March Sarah Weekly Planning Rituals.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Yeah, so this one is going to be a workshop
all about how we each plan our weeks and the
different ways that one might choose to do so, from
everything to when do we do it? To how detailed
is it? To inbox management to partner communications. So maybe
a little best laid plans type content there, but people
are always excited to talk about their systems, and I
(04:13):
feel like I learned so much every time I lead
one of these discussions because people share what they do
that works and there's so many key takeaways.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Absolutely, April we're going to be doing our Summer planning workshop,
talking all things summer fun, our camp spreadsheets, and so forth.
May will be the Big Time book Club. So my
book Big Time will be out in May, and we're
going to be having a interactive discussion about that June
Travel Hacks Sarah.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, so last year's we had a travel so some
of these are repeat topics and some of these are new.
And I have to say it, last year we had
such a fantastic discussion about travel that was great with
young kids, travel that made sense with older kids, and
I think a number of people ended up booking vacations
while they were attending the Zoom, which maybe wasn't exactly
what we have in mind, but I think there was
(05:01):
just so much inspiration to be had. So we'll focus
on the practical hacking and checking versus not checking. Maybe
even a little bit of cards and points hacking, although
that's much more min thing than Laura's. And then just
tons of ideas about how you can have fun in
different places in the country and the world with your family.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Absolutely, So July is going to be a video of
the two of us, sort of an exclusive episode that
we record each year for our Patreon community, where we
can sometimes talk about topics that we would not talk
about on the air. Then August is back to school
and everyone's favorite topic meal planning, Sarah, you're a fan
(05:39):
of meal planning.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
I am a fan of meal planning and I like
talking about it and so does everyone else. By the way,
you get access to all our old stuff whenever you join.
So if you're like, I want to know what you
guys said in your July video in twenty twenty five,
if you join now, you can see all our old
secret ish Yeah secret is I.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Mean, I'm still playing for storage on Zoom, so you
may as well watch the video while it's there. So yeah,
and then September we'll be take one night for you
talking about hobbies. We will also likely read reading the
book The Power of Fun, so looking forward to that October.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Superficial Things, Sarah, this is always a hit.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yes, there are some outlets where you can talk about
products and things, but.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
Not that many where nobody's sharing any paid links. Except
for this.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
We all come in Laura and I plus everybody in
Patreon with some of our favorite things. Nothing is sponsored content,
nothing is click here and get through my shopping portal whatever.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
It's just like, these are things we're loving.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And this is another one where there may be some
commerce happening, a.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Lot of shopping during the actual episode.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's definitely an episode where plenty of shopping happens, often
in real time.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I wound up buying a BB cream that I
have been using as a result of somebody else's recommendation.
So that was pretty exciting, if vaguely expensive. November is
our holiday planning workshop. We had so much fun with
this one this year, you know, making our holiday fun lists,
talking about gifts that we wanted to ask for.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I mean, you know, like.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
People are going to give you something, it may as
well be something you want, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yes, I definitely felt much more in the holiday mood
after we did this episode, so or this group, so
I know that the listeners do too.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And then every December, Sarah leads us in a goal
setting workshop. So this is a light version of both
Best Laid Plans at Home Bestlaid Plans Live.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
But even if you went to Best Laid Plans Live,
you may.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Have started your goal list for the next year, but
you want to refine it and have a few more
minutes to think about it and talk about it with people.
So we do this every December. It is a big hit.
You're going to love it. So anyway, that's what we
are going to be talking about in Patreon over the
next year, So please come join us. We'd love to
have you, and we will be talking about all those things.
(07:55):
So onward to Best Laid Plans. Sarah, it's exciting you
have book coming out today, right, and the CS airing,
I do that was a great coincidence.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I think every book that we write should come out
on a Tuesday.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Well, I think they normally do at this point, which
is interesting because when I first started writing books, they
came out on Thursdays, and then there was an entire
industry switch to Tuesdays weirdly enough, but now they are
so all our books are coming out on days that
we have bestli with the best of both worlds.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
I love it. Well, yes, I'm very excited.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
I'm going to admit that as this episode airs, I'm
going to be on call and perhaps.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
Not as focused on the book, but as soon as.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
That week is over, I think I'll be just celebrating
and super super excited to have it out in the world.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Because Sarah's book, Best Like Plans, I mean, this came
out of a long time of sort of dreaming and
schaming and thinking about sharing your ideas with the world.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
I mean, where did the idea to write a book
come from?
Speaker 4 (08:59):
You? Not just kidding.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
I've had it on my one hundred dreams or life
bucket list for so long now that I almost can't
tell you exactly where I first thought of it. I
do remember this one conversation I had with a novelist
who was also a pediatric surgeon who worked at the
same health system where I work. Where we were at
some party and I learned that he wrote books, and
I said something like I want to write a book,
and I think it was my first sort of public
(09:21):
declaration of that in real life. And he looked at
me and he said, well, what about? And I said planning?
And then I realized, oh, man, I really need to
work on my elevator pitch, because like just hearing that doesn't.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Sound like much.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
But then, over the course of talking about planning many
many episodes teaching it to others, the book took shape
in terms of what I wanted my book to be
about and the messages I wanted to have within.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
So the dream has been a really long time calming,
and then.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
The ideas really shaped gradually over I would say almost
the last decade.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, because I mean I think this had been a
goal that you kept coming back to and you're like, oh,
I'm going to try to do it. I'm going to
try and do it this year. I mean, WHOA what
sort of pushed you forward on this? Well?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
What pushes anyone forward on any goal. I actually had
this really revelatory or at least to myself, blog post
that I wrote a while back where I analyzed several
goals that were just sitting there and not moving forward.
And those goals are a state, planning, a book proposal,
and cleaning our house. So anyway, maybe not all of
(10:24):
them have yet to come to fruition. But it just
occurred to me that the missing ingredients with these goals
for me were the accountability and the urgency piece. I
didn't have someone that I was like reporting back to
that gave me specific due dates where there would be
consequences either monetary or just losing face if I didn't
follow through on what I set out to do.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
For me, that was the missing ingredient.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
There were also some other things I thought about, like
when a project is just too big or too daunting
and there's too much fear of failure, and so I
kind of worked on each of those elements as well,
but I do think the accountability was the biggest piece,
and for a state planning, I ended up hiring a
lawyer that I then said, I want you to give
me assignments. I want to set up in person meetings
where we have to get things done before the meeting,
and like we get charged if we don't come, you know,
(11:08):
or it would be very embarrassing to move things.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
And that ended up allowing.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Us to check this task off the list after it
festered for years.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Josh and I knew something we wanted to do and
then didn't do.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
It, and the book was similar, and I was thinking
about starting to query agents and kind of looking out
into the world, but then lightning struck, I guess, and
I talked about it on my podcast, and a editor
from a well known publishing house, Source Books, actually emailed
me and I think we'll take a break and I'll
tell the rest of the story.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
All right, Well, let's take a break. Well we are
back talking about best Like Plans, the book, not the podcast,
because there is now a book out in the world
(11:59):
by doctor Sarah hart Unker that is sharing with us
a plan for creating the life we love. So, Sarah,
you are saying you had this on your list for
years and then you got an email from an editor
who had listened to your show and you heard you
talking about this and said, whoa, we'd be interested in
talking about this.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So what happened then?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So then we set up a zoom meeting and she
told me, we're interested, we like the topic idea, we
see you have an audience, but we're going to need
a formal proposal.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
And she had a timeline in mind.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
She said, if we were going to release this book
in January of twenty twenty six, I know it's December
of twenty five, but originally we were thinking January twenty six,
then I would need that proposal by I think it
was August of twenty twenty four. She was able because
she's in the industry to think backwards and exactly how
many months each step would take, and at the time,
I think it was something like June. I'm making these
exact dates up, but it was not a ton of time,
(12:52):
which was perfect because I think if she had given
me eight months, I might have spun my wheels for
a really long time. But it was tight enough that
I was like, Wow, a fire has been lit. A
person wants this structured item from me. And the other
thing that I did when I knew I had to
write the book proposal or I really wanted to write
the book proposal, is it was able to get a
template off someone else's book proposal, which was about something
(13:14):
totally unrelated to planning.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
It was about like bird migration.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
But it allowed me to see that along with the
nonfiction book blueprint for a nonfiction book proposal, I think
by Jenny Nash. So I combined those two resources and
created a checklist that made the whole thing less daunting.
I knew I had to complete these twelve sections or
whatever they were, and I had two months to do it.
So I was finally able to chunk this task up
into something less terrifying than write book proposal. I already
(13:41):
had a due date, I had a timeline, and it
had been broken up smaller, and so I would say
those things all came together and finally allowed me to
move forward with bestly plans.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Well, and for anyone who's thinking of writing a nonfiction book, yeah,
the proposal is a key stage of it. But you
don't have to invent this out of whole cloth. I
mean there are tons of resources out there, like you
could just google how do I write a book proposal,
and you'll find ones, and there are books of successful
book proposals, for instance, that you can look at. And
(14:13):
the general idea is you are trying to convince agents
and publishers why the world needs this book, you know,
and then why you are the person to write it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
It is a marketing document, more or less.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And so Sarah created one of these, and happily enough,
her publisher decided to go through with it because you
had all the material from the courses you'd been teaching
at that point.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Right, Yeah, there was definitely an element of readiness as well.
And fun fact, someone else from source Books who's now
higher up there, even had reached out to me in
twenty eighteen with a similar query. And I don't think
it's a coincidence because Source Books is a very female
led organization and they're always looking for strong woman voices
and they had been interested prior, but I wasn't ready.
(14:58):
I think it took many rounds of teaching my content
to others to really make it more cohesive, to understand
what was actually valuable in practice to individuals, and just
to make me feel like enough of an expert that
I could sell myself into writing this book. I think
I tried to put pen to paper to write that
proposal in twenty eighteen and realized I just wasn't there yet.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, because you need the content to write a book.
And you know somebody who said write a book about planning,
You're like, okay, where are the systems? Right? I just
here's what I do every week. But you know, can't
really make sixty thousand words out of that. So yeah,
Then happily source book accepted the proposal, and you had
to turn it around quite quickly, right, I mean, I've
seen your time logs.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
There's not a ton of room for writing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yes, I believe it was due initially something like January,
and it was able to push it to February. And
this was starting in September or October. So I did
have a few chapters already written as they had been
included in my proposal as sample chapters, and didn't have
to change too much to the point of completing the book.
But there there was a lot to do it in
a little time. I think the timeline would have been
(16:03):
relatively daunting to even someone who had a full time
job as a writer, and I absolutely do not. The
thing that I did have on my side was again,
I had taught that content to a lot of people.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
A lot of times.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
I had PowerPoint presentations kind of almost an outline form
of my book, because a lot of the material came
from the concepts that I taught and tweaked and refined
in Best Laid Plans Academy, and so I was able
to use that as templates for parts of the book.
Then there were other sections I really had to write
from scratch, and I filled in the cracks of my
life with writing. It was a very busy time. I
(16:37):
don't really want to work that many hours per week normally,
but I'm so glad in retrospect that I did, including
the hours I spent writing while we were on our
family vacation in Montana. I wrote after skiing. I wrote
on the plane because again my dutate was looming, and
at the time I wasn't entirely thrilled about it. But again,
(16:57):
once I finished, that feeling of satisfaction having completed something
that I was so proud of, it felt very worth it.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah. I mean, well, we can always push for a
little bit with anything, and that doesn't mean you have
to do it for the rest of your life. But
if you have something big you want to do, sometimes
it does take some extra hours. And you know, you
spend a lot of time with your family, so it's
not like, you know, it's world's greatest tragedy to take
a few hours on a ski trip to write. But
let's talk about what is actually in the book, because
(17:25):
I'm sure we have some people listening to this who
are saying, Okay, well, Sarah, I am a faithful listener
of the Best Laid Plans podcast. What am I going
to get in the book that I'm not getting by
listening to you every week?
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:39):
So the book is structured as the introduction tells you
the sort of three key items that I think everyone
needs to plan, and that part's not going to be
brand new to you. I talk about air tight task management,
I talk about in calendar, and I talk about goal setting.
Then there are detailed, detailed descriptions more so than I
get into the podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
With a little bit more personal sharing.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
I think as well about each of those time horizons
of goal setting and planning, So I go from all
the way from the year down to the day, and
then there's a series of chapters that really aren't things
I've necessarily gone into detail about on the podcast, like
struggles that people have in meeting goals, struggles they have
within planning itself, the things like planner privilege that I've
touched on but certainly haven't written as in depth as
(18:21):
I do in the book. And then finally, there is
a section at the end where I go through vignettes
of people who graciously shared their.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Kind of take on my systems with me.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
So these are real people, most of them I know
in some way in real life, that go through how
did they do their task management, how do they do
their version of netted goals? What elements from my system
do they incorporate, what does not work for them? Do
they use paper, digital or both? So those vignettes are
I think one of my favorite parts of the book.
And then finally, the book contains checklists at every single level,
(18:53):
so I think it could be a really valuable reference
for some people who just want a guided way of
going through their planning on the daily, week, clean, monthly, seasonal,
and annual level.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Those checklists are convenient.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
I hope people write all over the book or make
copies or do whatever they need to do. But I
think that they're going to be very practical for people.
I really envision this book as if I was going
to kind of compare to any other book out there,
I probably would say getting things done. And obviously that's
a very high pedestal. It's a very popular book that's
sold nine jillion copies, but that's kind of the structure.
(19:28):
It's a very complete system, and you're allowed to take,
of course, elements from that system that resonate with you
and leave the ones that don't. But if you're looking
for the entire package of here's a way you could
plan everything, and here are ways that you might think
about troubleshooting if things aren't working, then you will find
that in Bestaid Plans the book.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, absolutely, it's a comprehensive system, similar to David Allen
was offering a comprehensive system for people trying to organize
their lives. So if your life looks a little bit
more like Sarah's, then you might find this helpful. Speaking
of which Sarah, I mean planning privilege is one of
these concepts that you have put out there that I
would assign your name to this when you talk about it,
(20:09):
because well, what is this and let's talk a little
bit about what that is.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Sure, So I noticed a phenomenon, particularly in couples with
a male half and a female half, though it absolutely
is not specific to that, where one partner more typically
the female ends up doing a lot of the planning
for the family, and the other partner is either obstructive
or just devalues that work by saying things like why
do we have to be so structured? I don't want
(20:36):
to be so regimented. I just want to live freely.
You're spending a lot of work stressing yourself out for nothing.
And sometimes these come from a place of watching their
partner maybe do a lot of work planning and seeing
that it takes time, and maybe they'd rather their partner
be a little bit more relaxed. But the part that
they're missing is that without those efforts, probably a lot
of little pieces of life that they take for granted
(20:57):
might just not happen. And I don't necessarily advocate that
people move to a shared load model in the planning,
because it's often that one person just has a little
bit more inclination than the others. But it's more to
make this work visible and valued and make sure that
there is an air of cooperation about it rather than
an air of disdain. I think that sometimes this can
(21:20):
go as deep as hurting relationships, and other times it's
more about someone just feeling like they're not supported despite
wanting to put a lot of effort into making their
families life run smoothly. So planning privilege is something I
talk about. I do think it's a treatable condition, and
I think the more that people talk about what kinds
of systems they are doing for their family and what
(21:43):
those benefits might be, the less planning privilege is a problem.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
I mean, if you think about it, nobody thinks in
their professional life, well, let's just see what happens and
we'll find out what our sales are for this year.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
At the end, it'll be exciting. We'll be spontaneous about it.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yeah, And you know, on a kind of best of
both worlds angle, being spontaneous when you have young kids
almost always involves childcare, and if you are the parent
who's not the default plarent, then maybe being spontaneous is great,
because you could just be like, well, the defaults got
the kids, so I'll just pop out for a spontaneous
round of golf with my friends. But if you are
the default parent, then spontaneous means you are never gonna
(22:22):
really feel like you can.
Speaker 4 (22:22):
Have a break.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So that's kind of another layer of how planning privilege
might be interpreted.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
Absolutely, well, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back with more on Best
Laid Plans.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
The book.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
Well, we are back talking about Sarah's new book, Best
Laid Plans. Encourage you to pick it up. It is
out today, so you can go order a copy as
you are listening to this, or stop by your local
bookstore figure out where you can and get that. You
had pre order bittises but Sarah like, it's out today, right,
I mean, we can't pre order anymore.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The book is out today, That is true.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
I really do want to thank everyone who did pre order,
and who knows, maybe I'll be able to share bits
of what I provided to my pre order fans and
supporters in the future, but really, thank you so much
to anyone who's even considering taking this book out from
the library. Purchasing it, I don't know, sharing it on
social media, whatever you can do.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Is there a world tour planned? I mean, what are
you going to be doing to promote it?
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I will be doing my usual, which is hopefully appearing
on podcasts and sharing on my website and obviously on
our Patreon and other platforms. I don't know about how
many in the wild opportunities I will have. A lot
of bookstores are pretty selective about who they will have.
I know, the better that the book does, the more
(23:54):
likely I may be able to make some appearances. If
anyone listening this has tied or owns a great bookstore
somewhere and wants to have me share about the book,
we could possibly make that happen.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
So let me know. My email is my name, Sarah
Hartunger at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, and in general, anyone who has a social media following,
you know, anyone who like shares things you enjoy with
the world, We would love if you could take a
picture of the book, talk about reading it, post a
review on any of the reading sites I mean, Amazon, Goodreads,
et cetera. If you have a newsletter, we would be
(24:32):
thrilled to have you share news of the book in there,
anything you could do to spread the word. I can
tell you, having been through this a few times, that
word of mouth is extremely helpful. And there's nothing that
sells a book beyond people being excited about it and
sharing it with other readers and deciding that they want
to have it too. So congrats, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
I'm so so excited and I appreciate all you have
done to share the book. Laura.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Fun to watch this journey, to see a goal come
to fruition over many years and make it happen. I mean,
this is a testament to the power of setting goals
and then being patient on the timeline, but knowing that
eventually it will happen.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
So go pick up a copy.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
And now onto our Q and A. On a book note, Sarah,
where or how do you track your reading?
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:27):
So I have on my website, on my blog a
page that just says like twenty twenty five books, and
then it has dropped down so you can see past years.
I started doing this in twenty twenty. I used to
have paper systems of tracking, but I wanted something for
reading that would be long term. I feel like it's
actually one of my greatest life regrets that I did
not start tracking my reading earlier. But you know, twenty
(25:50):
twenty that's not a terrible time to start.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I'm curious why would it be a regret it.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Do you think there was a book you read in
two thousand and nine that you're so excited about you
can't remember the title now.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I would just love to be able to see what
I was reading back then. I think it would be
so interesting. I mean, I guess I could. I've probably
mentioned a lot of the books I've read on my blog.
I could maybe ask AI to create it.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Could probably make a list.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
It could craze on all your blog posts and pull
titles from all of us.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
It would have tons of errors, but it would still
be super interesting. So maybe I will do that.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, you could go in and correct the record, right,
like I mean, you can see like I mean, because
who knows. You may have referred to it by not
entirely the right name, or said something you know, like
how people do, and it would have no good way
of knowing sometimes if what was a book or something else.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
But it could work.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Yeah, what about you? Do you track your reading?
Speaker 2 (26:46):
No?
Speaker 1 (26:48):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
I used to briefly from about twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen,
which perhaps long time readers might recall as something of
a reading renaissance in my life. But I went through
and I actually read a lot of the books on
my sort of reading bucket list during that period of time,
(27:09):
and so I was tracking it, writing down the titles
I had read during that time, and I think at
twenty seventeen, I probably I mean, I read well over
one hundred books, and some of those were I mean
literally Warren Peace, Kristin Lavern's Zatter one Q eighty four.
I mean those were all on the list in twenty seventeen,
twenty eighteen. I mean I also have reread Ulysses, I
(27:30):
read Moby Dick, I read you know, all the.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
Other like the Middle March, all the other big ones.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
And then I think by twenty nineteen I was kind
of like, okay, not that there are no more books
to read in life, but I read a lot of
the ones that were initially on my list of like
the greatest hits that I hadn't read. So I either
needed to start making a new list or I don't know,
And I kind of lost intensity at that point, and
then life happened. We had Henry, you know, the pandemic.
(27:58):
I didn't wind up continuing with tracking reading. I would say,
I don't know if it would improve my reading life
or not. It's just not something I felt a huge
need to do. But I know a lot of people
do enjoy it for the reasons you said. I mean,
you don't like to see what you've read, or maybe
some people find the numbers exciting.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Do you think it's that For.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Me, it's not really the numbers, and I seem to
read the same number of books no matter what I do,
So it's more I think I really like being able
to at the end of the year reflect back, Oh,
these were my five favorites, and these are the ones
that I go to to recommend, or these are the
ones that I might want to revisit again. I think
it's more about the actual titles themselves, and also just
looking for patterns, like, oh, wow, in that year I
read all these books about mindfulness, but then in that
(28:40):
year all my nonfiction was about digital distractions, Like I
just think that's super fascinating.
Speaker 4 (28:46):
I feel like I'm so almost surprised.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
You don't build the reading log into your timelog, but
that would go against your tenet that keeping the timelog
very simple is what allows it to be so incredibly
sustainable for you.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, it does. And I mean I started.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Putting like how many miles I had run on that,
but that wasn't when I first started like that took
another year or two before I was like, okay, well
if I run, I'll put the distance next to it,
so I have then a record of that. But I
didn't do the books. And you know I could. I
could put it in, but I don't know. I mean,
(29:22):
some of them aren't that memorable. Yeah, we'll get back
to you.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
But you know, if anyone's looking for how do you
do this? I mean obviously you can use anything.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
I mean, you could just keep a notebook that you
list the titles and authors and maybe a thought on it,
like if you want to remember, like did you like
the book? I mean, that might be one of the
reasons to track is to remember did I like this book?
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Did I not like this book? Or what did I
like about this book? Because that might help you find
similar books in the near future.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
So one hack for that is that. And I learned
this from one of the book podcasts. But there's like
these detailed spreadsheets and one column some people is who
recommended this book or what specific imprint the book was
from a publishing house. So keeping track of those things
will help you figure out ooh, every time Jenny recommends
a book, I'm devouring it so that you will be
(30:12):
more likely to.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Whereas Karen's recommendations just don't land.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
So you can, poor Karen.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Take that with a grain of salt next time she
is recommending a book.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Yeah, no, that would be a good hack. Or even
just the star rating.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
You know, out of ten stars or five stars, whatever,
like how you thought of this book or you know
it was this seven out of ten or you know
nine out of ten or two out of ten, like
then I hope you don't finish it. Or some people
use good Reads for tracking their reading their shelf, like
what they would like to read, So they could do
this digitally and share it as a form of social
media as well, if you'd be you'd be.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Into or story graph that's the big competitor I think
these days.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Yeah, so any other that would work. Sarah, what's your
love of the week this week?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Yeah, my love of the week is hmm, I hadn't
written oh the inspiration of the Board countdown of the
top twenty one holiday albums released in the twenty first century.
I'm having a lot of fun with that. I mean,
as this airs, there are nine days till Christmas, so
you could do two to three a day and get
(31:15):
through all of them.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
I mean there's a lot of hours in a day
you could do this.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
So so far, highlights have probably been I mean, Casey
Musgraves already knew I loved that, but I was glad
to see it on the list, and surprisingly good Michael Bublet,
I mean, maybe not surprising to some people, but I
think of him as just so cheesy. But with holiday music,
it just kind of worked.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's what you want. You want the cheesiness.
Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, well, I mean, listening to three of those albums
a day, you might be getting a lot of Oh
Holy Night, so.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Just brace yourself for that.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
But if you have a lot of long car trips,
or you know, you're wrapping presents, that maybe could keep
you entertained, or you could just fast forward through Oh
Holy Night. So my love of the week is fancy Tree.
So we now have two Christmas trees. Actually we have
more than two Christmas trees, because Ruth has a Christmas
tree as well. But there are two full sized Christmas
(32:09):
trees in our house. We have the live tree that
we get from the fire station every year, and that
one we decorate with all the old ornaments, the colorful lights,
all that good stuff. Then I have the fancy tree
in the formal living room, which is a one of
those artificial but from like the high end companies or whatever,
and it's got the white lights and the glowy ornaments
(32:32):
and all matching and such, and I enjoy that, Like
that's the kind of tree I never had, what the
elegant tree. The elegant tree, I call it the fancy tree.
But that just adds to my holiday joy. And then
I don't feel the need to police the family tree
in any way, Like it can have whatever you want, it.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Can have the colorful lights.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I don't care, because I have my tree that has
the sort of calm, neutral esthetic that you would see
in a magazine.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
My kids are actually sad that they're not going to
get to decorate your tree this year, Laura.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
But we'd love to have them. Maybe it's already decorated
but maybe in the future. We would love to have
them back any Thanksgiving you guys wind up here that
can be part of our extravaganza.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been
talking best laid Plans the.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Book which is out today, so encourage you to go
pick up a copy of Sarah's new book and we
will be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Please join us next time for more on making work
and life work together.
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