November 25, 2025 • 35 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah share upcoming Thanksgiving plans and then discuss the various way they love to dream about the future, from 100 Dreams lists to Long Term Visioning and beyond.
Then, they recap BLP Live -- their 3rd annual planning conference held live in South Friday. They share highlights from the experience and provide lots of suggestions for listeners interested in creating a similar experien
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (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 1 (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 term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in late November of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
We are going to be talking about dreaming big, the
idea of creating time and space for thinking about your future,
about planning the upcoming year. In particular, we're going to
be talking about our recent experience with Best Laid Plans Live,
which was a fun little get together that Sarah and
I were part of a couple weeks ago. But first,
(01:08):
this is airing the week of Thanksgiving. Sarah, do you
have any fun family traditions or anything you're doing this year?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, We're doing our kind of usual Thanksgiving this year,
which doesn't involve travel and is fairly low key. My
kids are off for an entire week, and that has
been the case for a few years now, except for
one random year when the Montessori school decided we'll open
half a day on Monday and that's it. But beyond
that they realized that that didn't make any sense, and
(01:36):
so the public schools, the private schools, pretty much everyone
in South Florida is off for the entire week of Thanksgiving,
and we plan to stick around. We have some family
gatherings planned. We have a friends Giving that we've been doing,
I think for the third or fourth year in a
row now. That usually is on Saturday, and I definitely
want to see the Wicked sequel.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Put that on the calendar for sure. Yeah, I need
to shift my mental model of Thanksgiving. So up until
this year, our school district had class on Monday and
Tuesday and a half day Wednesday, So in my mind,
Thanksgiving was not a particularly available weekend or you know,
for travel or anything like that. And plus we all
(02:16):
often do the actual Thanksgiving meal itself with my side
of the family, and everyone's within a few hours of here,
so there's not extensive travel like you just drive to
either We're hosting or a drive to somebody else's house,
but it's a day trip whatever it's going to be,
so we're generally not flying anywhere. However, this year they
switched it. They got rid of half days, which is nice,
(02:40):
so we do not have school on Wednesday, and that
was fine. I was like, oh, okay, well, you know,
I hadn't really built that into my mental model, but fine.
And then I was talking to some people and looked
at it and realized the elementary and middle schools are
actually doing conferences on Tuesday, so it wasn't on the
mass to school district calendar because they don't do like
(03:03):
individual schools calendar days on there. But three of the
four children who are home do not have school on
that day, so and that may be the case in
the future too, in which case, oh my goodness, Like
I think we could go somewhere. I mean, that's like
a major time off, you know. So I'm pondering, like
in the future if we want to take a trip
(03:23):
or something like that. As it is, we're gonna be
sticking around here because I didn't make any last minute
plans for that, and I'm just gonna be working because
I've got a lot of work going on. But yeah,
it's different, different mental models. Sometimes the calendar sneaks up
on you.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And there is that from a work perspective, it can
be difficult. I mean, I'm definitely not off all week
for clinical. I am working Tuesdays, so or Nanny will
be coming that day. I know I'll be recording a
ton on Monday as I'm preparing for my book launch.
And you do have to always remember those work trade offs.
Where winter break is also coming up for us, that's
two weeks off. I do travel for that time, and
(04:00):
it tends to be very busy. From like a annual
planning leader perspective, I guess. So I don't know for me,
like as much as it would be nice to travel,
I think that I'm gonna keep Thanksgiving low key even
though we have a week.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I mean, there is true we are traveling over
Christmas and there will be time off then too, and
so Thanksgiving comes close before that. So there are trade
offs at this and as always with controlling your own schedules,
like well I can do things, should I do things?
I don't know, so many things to ponder with that,
but we will get started on some of the items
(04:35):
on the holiday fun list. I think we'll wind up
going to Dutch Wonderland, which is a little I mean,
Sarah probably knows this, but it's a small amusement park
around here that also does holiday light show displays. And
they had a flash sale with really cheap tickets. I
mean not when there are seven people, They're never cheap,
but you know, it was cheaper than a lot of
other things could have been. So I got that for
(04:57):
all of us, And we'll probably go to Longwood Gardens,
which is often challenging to get a reservation for Longwood Christmas,
but I got the membership where you don't have to
make reservations. That was my investment in my family's flexibility
for this year. So happy about that. But yeah, are
(05:17):
you guys doing any holiday stuff over Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Or I feel like we kick off our kind of
fun holiday stuff after. So it's just going to be
more family focused in Thanksgiving. Like I want to save
my watching of Elf and our Nutcracker and like that's
for later and Hankah. This year is it's like mid December.
So yeah, I think our more holiday festivities will start
post Thanksgiving, although I do plan on doing a lot
(05:41):
of Black Friday Hanukkah shopping, which we have done in
years past and has been a nice timing.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah. Well, I hear that Sarah's kids have already made
their PowerPoint presentations with their gift requests.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yes, they're quite elaborate. I don't know what that says
about them, but it does make sure a little bit easier.
Although we've made it very clear that just because there
is a slide with something on it does not mean
you will receive said item, because there's a lot of slides.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
As one of my children made a list that was
quite long with astis under it saying, you know, I
do not expect everything on this list. This is just
to give you lots of options to choose from, so
I will then be surprised. So I respect that. I respect. Yeah,
So this episode is going to be some reflections from
our recent Best Laid Plans Live extravaganza, which was in
(06:34):
South Florida in early November. So Sarah, maybe you can
tell a little bit about the background of how Best
Laid Plans Live came to be.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, the idea came to me because Josh and I
have had several kind of couples getaways that turned into
many planning trips. They would often happen around our anniversary,
so midyear or his birthday, which conveniently is towards the
end of the year, and we'd start going through our
calendars and kind of setting and I'm like, you know,
this should be like a whole formalized thing. And I
(07:04):
was very attracted to the idea of a you know,
I talk about kind of planning in proportion to the
level of the time frame that you're planning. So my
yearly planning should really be I don't want to say, elaborate,
but thoughtful and not rushed. And so, you know, I
was doing these with Josh, and I think I might
have said to him or thought about it, like, well,
you know, anybody could do this and I could like
prepackage it. And then I was like, you know, I
(07:27):
wonder if anyone would actually want to come plan with me.
And I also will give a shout out to another
mother Runner because they hosted running retreats that I had
always been like, hm, I kind of want to do
that someday, so haha, won't be doing that, but at
least I got them as inspo and I even emailed
or called Sarah and she told me that running retreat
(07:48):
was incredibly rewarding. This is Sarah from another mother runner,
not myself, but to be careful because retreats are very
expensive and it's not a good business plan. And I
was like, well, okay, but that's fine. I want to
do it anyway, like as long as I come out
even or whatever, I want to see what this is, like,
I'll go for it. And so, I mean, it did
feel kind of risky because I was doing it entirely
(08:09):
on my own. But this was fall of twenty twenty three.
I had already taught the first round of bestleid Plans Academy,
so I knew people were interested in planning with me.
I don't remember if I had actually like floated the
idea to this group or not, but went ahead and
launched the tickets. Worked with a hotel, set up a package.
I had a lot of fear about if you reserve
space and then you don't sell the number of rooms,
(08:31):
then you can be on the hook for them, so
it's actually kind of scary. However, I tried to make
the contract with enough wiggle rooms so that like I
could call the whole thing off if it was like
a total failure, and I wouldn't have to pay for
twenty rooms or something like that anyway, So it all
worked out. People signed up. We had about twenty participants
that first year, including Laura, which was amazing and I
(08:53):
really appreciated that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I think she really wanted to come right of course,
of course, and it was a show of support, and
we just had a blast.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Like I remember thinking, oh, you know this, who knows
these people won't get along whatever, And within like fifteen
minutes it was like, oh, oh no, this is fine,
this is going to be fine. I had crafted a
curriculum and a workbook which I then later ended up
repurposing for like an at home version, but it seemed
to really work. There was even more discussion and kind
(09:21):
of cross talk and cross pollination of different ideas and
inspiration than I had even imagined.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And I had a great time.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But then I also was like, that was so much work,
and you know, not everything's about money, but I think
I might have like barely broken even who was like, wow,
I spent so many hours and it was stressful doing
it on my own. It felt very risky, and I
said to Laura, like I am not entirely sure I
can do this again, and she said, but it was
(09:51):
really really good, Like anything I can do to help,
you know, make it happen, Lisa's what I remember. And
I'm like, do you want to do it with me?
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And I did, Yeah, No, I mean it was a
lot of fun for me the first year going to it.
I mean partly because people who were coming to Sarah's
retreats sometimes knew me as well, and so they This
is actually kind of a fun thing of having put
my life out into the public world for lo these
(10:18):
many years, is that people who listen to or read
you like know enough about your life that you get
to skip like twenty minutes of small talk in your
first conversation because they already know like, oh that you
have these kids or you've had these jobs, and you've
done these things, and so they then start talking about
the things they know you're going to find most interesting.
It's like it makes her so much better conversations. I
was like, oh, well, this is great. These are already
(10:40):
my friends. I mean, they're not really my friends. I
didn't know them yet, but they became them.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Right, They are truly like and now they definitely consider
many of the attendees, I mean really all of them
feel like friends at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Which was unexpected.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, right, Like, I don't think I went in thinking
it was going to feel that way.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well, and so it was so much fun and so yeah,
I wanted Sarah to do it again, and so I
tell her we would just go split on it. We
would run it together. We would split the upsplits, split
the downside. Right, it's whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's been amazing because it feels better doing it as
a team. For me, it feels less stressful, it feels
more fun. I think we make a really fun team.
I'll get like really like in the weeds about something
in Laura is like, ugh, it's fine, Like I feel better.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, it's true. I the upside of I mean, so
we hold these things in South Florida, which, of course,
I mean there's upsides that Sarah's local, like she doesn't
have to travel there, which you know, travels its own
special adventure. But on the other hand, that means I
get to excuse myself from some of the details of
like hotel choosing and the like. So you know, there
are pluses and minuses with all of it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, And we actually ended up moving hotels this year
and it was definitely I'm not saying anything. The prior
hotel was great, but the hotel we moved to was
definitely a notch nicer. I feel like it made the
whole experience more elevated. I got a lot of positive feedback,
but it did take work to move. As you put.
We have a coordinator, Amanda, who is amazing. She was
in attendee as well the first year and has since
(12:09):
come on as an official coordinator role, and she helped
me tour different places and helped me select them and
then also does a lot of the kind of logistics
work during the conference itself, so that even more, I
don't feel like I'm like on the hook for oh,
you know, where's the gluten free option that we requested
at lunch or something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yes, we don't have enough forks. Yeah, yeah, so that
is not something that Sarah I have to think about
during the retreated itself. Well, we're going to take a
quick ad break and then we'll be back talking a
little bit more about what happens at Best Laid Plans Live.
(12:53):
So we are back talking about how to dream big
about planning the upcoming year, particularly through the lens of
having just done Best Laid Plans Live, which is a
retreat that Sarah started in twenty twenty three and that
I came on as a co host in twenty twenty
four and repeated in twenty twenty five. So Sarah, talk
about what we actually do at the retreat.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, we'll walk you through in case you want to
create a DIY version or do something like this with friends.
So okay, we spend the first evening and afternoon just
really like getting to know each other, so it's a
lot of icebreaker type stuff. This year we did a
low stakes hot takes activity that was really fun, and
we do like very brief introductions and do some activities
(13:35):
where people can mingle a little bit, and then we
sit down and get all quiet and set some intentions
for the weekend so that people can really think about
what do they want to come away with having accomplished
with this protected time. And by the way, it is
all women that have attended this retreat. We are not
averse to having anybody of any gender register for our retreat,
but so far that is the audience we've gotten, and
(13:57):
many of these women have small kids at home, and
so for them, not only is it the structured planning
content they're here for, it's the space to do so.
And so we want people to take that seriously, and
that's why we do our little intention setting and then
it's Laura's turn.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yay. Yeah. This year I led people through some calendar analysis.
We had five women track their time for a week,
and I had talked with them before the event through
their schedules, and we'd come up with ideas for them
to try. So we talked about some things that were
working really well in their lives, and then we talked
(14:35):
about some challenges they were having, and particularly we focused
on challenges that might be slightly more broadly applicable. So
among them was like figuring out what your hobby should be,
so not just like, oh, I need to find time
for my hobby. When people are busy enough, they are
(14:56):
often spending so much mental effort on work and family
that they don't even know what they would do for fun.
And so when time starts to appear, like as your
kids get older, you become enough good at your job
that you don't have to put as much mental effort
into certain things, because they kind of run like clockwork
because you've set it up so amazingly, like you have
space to do something else in life, but figuring out
(15:17):
what that is can be complicated. So we talked about that.
We talked about how to not hate life if you
have a long commute, like how a long commute can
be turned into project or gold time. Since I know
we have a number of listeners and people who are
attending a retreat who maybe took jobs over the last
(15:37):
five years that were more fully remote and then have
become less fully remote as the world has emerged from COVID,
And while it's fun to be in the office, if
you maybe purchased your house thinking you had a fully
remote job and are now facing a very long commute
two or three times a week, that can be challenging.
And then spending more time in our zones of genius.
(16:01):
One of the people who was attending our retreat as
a religious leader, and so she's leading her congregation, and
yet because it's sort of a smaller congregation, she's spending
a lot of time on things like furniture assembly and
property management and an administration. In general, we want our
(16:22):
religious leaders to spend more time on the spiritual direction
of their flock, and less time on putting together I
can't furniture, so trying to figure out for all of
us how we can spend more time in our zone
of genius and less on other things.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, and it's really interesting because even though you would
think some of these challenges are so specific, you realize
how truly universal many of them are. And then not
only did Laura offer suggestions, but we got some fantastic
and creative suggestions from all the women around the room
as well, So it ended up being a really, really
fun session. I definitely think we should do that next
year as well.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And then we had time for coming up with our
list of one hundred dreams and for sharing some of
those in small groups as well. Yes, and then we
have fun.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
So this retreat again is really supposed to be something
you look forward to. So we cap that all off
with the reception the first night, with drinks and fun
foods and stuff like that. Often there's an after party
that I skip. I'm more fun later on, but as
you'll hear, I do like the bulk of the kind
of stand up teaching on the next couple of days,
so I usually need to go to bed on that
(17:24):
first night in order to kind of prepare myself. Okay,
So then on day two, so the first day is
a half day, the second day is a full day.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's a Friday.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We get up early and there's an optional beat yoga,
which Laura and I have enjoyed taking part of for
the last three years now, and then we kind of
head into hardcore planning modes. So there's a workbook and
people get out their pens and we go through various exercises.
We start with visioning type stuff like really long term dreaming,
thinking about what we want our life to look like
(17:53):
down the road and really kind of getting specific about that,
and then zooming back in we look back about how
the year has gone, which projects we are excited to
have completed, which projects we are ready to move on from,
and maybe those projects that we wish we had done
but weren't in the cards for twenty twenty five, and
we have to think about how we might reframe them
(18:14):
or maybe add some more support to get them done.
In twenty twenty six. We do like a big calendar
deep dive, and then we do goal setting, and that's
like a very spat up version because each of these
things is usually kind of heads down time where people
are writing in their workbooks, and then we'll ask people
to share various things, often crowdsourcing, where there's maybe a
little bit of tension or a dilemma for somebody, like oh,
(18:35):
I wanted to do this, but you know it didn't
work out, and anybody have the ideas for how that
might be different This year, We take a break and
then we do a ton of systems talk, and I
actually restructure the retreat a little bit this year because
it was kind of mixed in before where we'd be
doing goal setting and then we'd kind of pivot to
and how are you keeping track of these goals? And
instead we did like all our goal setting kind of
(18:56):
in the morning, and then the afternoon was about like
the life systems that enable some of these things to happen,
like when will you look at your goals lists? And
how do you plan your week? And how do you
handle all the loose ends coming at you and things
like that. It's almost like a little mini Bestaid Plans academy.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Then we relax again so people get a little bit
of downtime, and then we all meet up for dinner,
and then we have one more night, so the next
morning there's a little again we always want people to
be in the right mindset to enjoy themselves a little
bit of outdoor time walking or running, whichever they want.
And then we talk about a lot of just common
hot topics, from time for deep focused work, to sharing
(19:39):
the load with your partner, to managing technology. Meal planning,
that's Laura's favorite part. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We could run a whole retreat on meal planning and.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Maybe that's the spinoff.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Just kidding.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Anyway, and then there's usually tons of conversation by that
point because everyone really feels like they know each other.
We do some fun stuff like go around the room
and share either like a fun you know, a love
of the week or a word of the year, things
like that, or one big goal we're hoping to be
able to give positive news on the next year. And
then we wrap up and everyone's really really sad to leave,
(20:14):
including me.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, and I was sad to leave, but I didn't
get to leave.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
So yeah, that is true. Well, you got to enjoy
some extra time with me.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I were lucky. I did get to enjoy some extra
time with Sarah. So this was early November. Thankfully we're
through this now, but listeners may recall that the government
shut down and the flight cancelations and such was happening
right at this time, and so a number of people
had delayed or canceled flights. My flight to Philadelphia was canceled,
(20:46):
so I didn't get out till the next day. But
the upside is I got to hang out with Sarah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I mean, we had thirty attendees and almost all of
them flew in. There were a couple of Florians, but
most were not local, and I think you were the
only one that got stuck overnight.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay, say, I'm just blessed.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yes, but we had a fun dinner and she slept
over in my living room and it was great.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you know, the idea is you
want to come out of this with ideas for the
next year and ways to think about your next year,
and you know, looking at what time is available and
how our goals are going to actually fit in our lives.
I came out of it with a few things. I mean,
we won't spoil our goals episode, but you know, it's
(21:27):
even like random stuff like I want to actually wear
my jewelry. I tend to forget to put it on.
And then you know, I need to plan my next
get together with Sarah, for it's always a treat when
I am coming through a northern winter to February March
head down to Florida for another best of both world's
(21:47):
retreat with Sarah. So I realize, I need to get
that on the calendar. So we have a rough date
for that now.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes, And I had like a revelation that I can
combine my desire to see fall leaves with my desire
to see my college friends. So going to work on
that and I would say my incomplete but line of
thinking is like I need a running replacement and what
will that be? So I just started really thinking about that.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, And we have now had some of the same
attendees who have been there for three years, and so
we were starting to hear various goals that people set
in the past that have happened, whether that's homes that
have been remodeled, books published, new jobs landed, and sometimes
people say that they didn't do something but they want
to repeat it, which is fine. I know Sarah's had
(22:30):
the experience of sometimes goals not happening one year and
then she decides to reset it and it eventually does.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, we talk about how if you do have a
goal that wasn't meant you still want to do it,
you probably need to approach it differently, Like whatever you
were throwing at it before wasn't enough, But that doesn't
mean that you need to cross it off the list.
I mean, my book was on my hundred Dreams list
for many years before it came to fruition.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, well, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back talking about ways you
can kind of diy then if you would like to, well,
(23:14):
we are back talking about our experiences at Best Laid
Plans Live. A few weeks ago or we had thirty
attendees come to South Florida to think through our upcoming
year and meet some great friends, have a good time together. So, Sarah,
does everyone need to come to South Florida? I guess
we can't have everyone who listens to this come, Although
(23:35):
fun as that would be.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I know we can't. And like side note, like we
keep talking about like do we want to make it bigger?
Because we know more? We did have a waiting list,
and everyone seems to want to come back, but we're
not entirely sure. We're thinking about it, we're thinking about
the structure. But assuming that you are not able to
make it to join us live, there are so many
other things you can do. You can absolutely DEI why
this with your partner again, this started with me and
(23:57):
Josh doing it, So with a friend by yourself, you
can create an agenda for yourself. I think the main
ingredients you need are protected time and an idea or
some kind of structure, whether you make it up or
get it from somebody else, of what you want to plan.
And I think adding a dash of fun and relaxation
really is going to help this be successful and something
(24:18):
that you look forward to. If you want a kind
of very similar version to what we do live, that's
kind of given to you already pre structured. My program
Best Laid Plans at Home Planning twenty twenty six is
basically the same content. The workbook is designed a little
bit differently. Instead of beach Theming, it is ski and
winter Theming this year because it always takes place at
(24:40):
the end of the year, and I'm going for like
cozy lodge vibes instead of palm trees. But it is
really many of the same exercises, a lot of that
same heads down time, me providing it for you via zoom.
And so I really love teaching this course. Every year
it's grown, and I do still like it to be
a size where people can So I do three showings now,
(25:03):
one in December, one in January, and then one I
think it's also in January. That's weekend, so that if
people don't have time during the work week due to
a less flexible work schedule, you can actually catch it
with me. I don't even remember if it's Saturday, air Sunday.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
It iss on my website.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
All that information you can find at the shoebox dot
com slash courses.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and I was thinking about it if I were
going to do this on my own, what elements I
would probably include. I would definitely carve out space for
that list of one hundred dreams, so sort of an
unedited what do I want in the future in my
life then sort of drill it down, like what on
this list do I think might be fun to take
(25:40):
on over the next year, Right, So professionally, what do
I want to be talking about at the end of
the next year that I've done that, I'm going to
be raising my champagne glass to toast how an amazing
a year it was, What like three to five things
would I be excited about? And in my personal life too,
you know, if I'm talking with my face family at
our extended family get together at the end of the
(26:03):
next year, and I'm telling about what we did over
the year, like, well my family did, what was so fun?
What accomplishments or experiences would I be talking about, Like,
these are the highlights of my year over the next year.
And then you know, if there's any sort of long
term projects I like to do every year with you know,
reading or listening to or writing something, so thinking about that,
(26:24):
you know how I could take that big list and
pull it down. I do think it's also helpful to
do a version of like an ideal week schedule, because
whatever goals you are going to set in life have
to fit in the one hundred and sixty eight hours
you have each week. We are not going to become
entirely different people in the new year. We are going
(26:47):
to have many of the same constraints we have currently,
and so you need to sort of analyze your schedule,
not saying everything that's happening now has to happen then,
but roughly the times that are flexible are going to
be the times that are flexible in the future. You
could make some tweaks, but what would those be in
order to free up more space, Maybe you decide because
that's going to suggest some goals in and of itself. Right, Like,
(27:08):
if you have a hobby you want to start doing
on the weekends, but you have young kids, one of
the steps toward that is either going to be working
out a specific trade off time with your partner or
a friend or another family member so that you have
that protected time, or it's going to be hiring a
sitter who can come stay with your kids during that time.
But those are all going to be suggested by doing
(27:29):
that ideal week exercise. So big list, hone it down
to one year, look at the schedule, see where it
can fit in.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I would even also just add look at what's already planned,
because many of us have stuff coming up next year
that might be really big, and if you don't take
those like kind of big rocks into consideration, that's it's
sort of like the ideal year in a way. I
mean not really, but just like all of these goals
have to be grounded in reality, and like if you're
having a baby in March, then that might alter to
(28:00):
forget that, but other medium sized things you might not
think about.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So yeah, I kind of forgotten. One of the things
that's happening this year is, you know, in terms of travel,
like I will probably attend my twenty fifth college reunion
in May, and I don't have to go far, but
it will be a whole long weekend of stuff, and
so I had sort of not really remembered that, so
I was thinking through the year that that would be
(28:24):
coming up. So put that in and it'll be fun.
I'll see people that I haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That'll be great. Yeah, your review of the year will
yield little discoveries like that, and then you can.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Plan around them.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
But things you're already excited to do.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, absolutely. But you'll hear the goals that we set
in our upcoming Goals episode, which Sarah will make sure
that we do.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We are definitely doing it on the schedule.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So we have this question. We mentioned that list of
one hundred dreams idea that sort of long unedited list
of anything you want to spend more time doing or
goals you want to accomplish over the course of your life.
So Sarah and I have both made several of these,
and a listener asked us, what do you do with
your old list of one hundred dreams? So, Sarah, what
do you do with yours?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I've have hazardly kept them, like some I've snapped pictures
of and put them in the blog. Some of them
I'll like take a picture and I have a folder
and Apple notes that says it's my Sunday Mimi, and
then I have a bunch of pictures of one hundred
dreams lists there.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I do, however, like to start from scratch when I
do the exercise, because it doesn't take like seven hours
to write a hundred dreams. It probably takes an hour, honestly,
if you're really well. I tend to be quick at
this type of thing, so it takes me about an hour.
And I would rather not necessarily be prompted by what
was on my old list, Like I think be fun
to look at the old list afterward, but actually be like,
(29:40):
as of now, what are the things that I want
to do? So I don't pay tons of attention to
keeping it, and I don't think of it as like
I mean, it is an interesting idea that it's like
a time horizon above the year, and you're going to
select your year list from it, And it sounds like
you do that a little bit more, I don't. I
use it more as like a idea hub off in
the clouds of my brain that will get pulled from
when and I feel like it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, So mine are on my blog. I have one
from twenty ten, I have one from twenty fifteen. I
have one from twenty eighteen, which sounds like I'm probably
due to write another one, Sarah. Maybe we need to
both do these soon.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, although I don't I mean some of them. Is
all of it bloggable? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, No, probably all of us not bloggable, and so
I would need to think that through as well. But
it's kind of fun to look back at the old
ones because a reasonable number of things on the twenty
ten list have happened, some have not, and then some
I realize, like, I have no interest in this anymore.
(30:43):
And that's also good to know, because life changes, and
sometimes it's fun to look through past ones with that
in mind because yeah, you know, totally don't have to
keep our goals forever.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
No, it's just a it's not a life report card either,
It's just a list you generated on a given day,
on a given day.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
All right, So love of the week, Sarah, Mine is
going to be going to live events. I mean, post
pandemic is really cool to see people in person, obviously,
even if there is the risk of flight cancelation. These
are the downsides we sometimes accept in order to see
people in person. And I would tell people it is
(31:24):
often worth getting on a plane. There's often reasonable airfares
to get places. When air travel works, it is very
very fast. I mean like literally I'm in the Philadelphia
airport and like two hours later, I'm in South Florida.
It's just incredible. When it works. There are sometimes complications,
(31:46):
but when it works, it's great. So if you have
friends you would like to get together with, you don't
necessarily need to be so precious about this. Like you
could just choose a weekend, get on a plane on
Friday evening and come back Sunday night and go see
them and you'd probably really enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Definitely, Well, my level of the week, I'm going a
little basic here. I had book club last night, and
I'm just so happy I have a book club. Like
it's just a fun thing to have on the calendar,
and I hope I continue to do it going forward.
And this is your encouragement that you know, if you're
telling yourself a story that like you can't do something
like that, visit a friend or be part of a
(32:25):
community group because I don't know, it would be a
pain to fit it in question yourself, like what are
the actual barriers?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, because you can probably make it happen. And just
to shout out here, We're going to be doing a
couple book club picks with our Patreon community for Best
of Both Worlds over the next year. We'll be publishing
our curriculum for twenty twenty six very soon.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And I'm super excited about it.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's more interactive. I think like we are going to
you know, it's obviously voluntary, but we're going to be
hosting basically challenges every single month with follow up on
those things, and I think people are gonna love it.
I'm excited for it.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah. So for any new listeners, our podcast, The Best
of Both Worlds has a Patreon community, so you can
go over to patreon dot com and search for that
Best of Both Worlds podcasts. We have a very active
forum where we have usually three discussions a week on
a topic related to work in life and people, our
(33:26):
general age of building careers, raising families, things that might
be of interest to us. And then we have monthly
Zoom meetups. We get to chat about these topics in
a more interactive way. And it's just been so much
fun to meet listeners and some of whom have come
to Best Laid Plans Live, but not everyone, and so
we get to meet other people as well.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yes, and it's always fun when the other direction happens
when you know someone from Patreon and then you're like,
oh my god, you're real and you meet them.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, So encourage people to check that out. We'd love
to have more folks join us over the next year. Well,
this has been Best of Both Worlds. We have been
talking Best Laid Plans Live, how it worked, and how
you might diy your own version of this, but we
will most likely be doing a end of twenty twenty
six Best Laid Plans Live Planning twenty twenty seven. If
(34:15):
you want to think about that. Put that on your
radar for the next year. We'll probably announce this signups
in March, so stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
For that if you want to save the dates, probably
November fifth through seventh.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, all right, well, this has been best of both worlds.
We'll be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you can.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us
next time for more on making work and life work together.
Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 2 (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 1 (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 term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
episode is airing in late November of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
We are going to be talking about dreaming big, the
idea of creating time and space for thinking about your future,
about planning the upcoming year. In particular, we're going to
be talking about our recent experience with Best Laid Plans Live,
which was a fun little get together that Sarah and
I were part of a couple weeks ago. But first,
(01:08):
this is airing the week of Thanksgiving. Sarah, do you
have any fun family traditions or anything you're doing this year?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, We're doing our kind of usual Thanksgiving this year,
which doesn't involve travel and is fairly low key. My
kids are off for an entire week, and that has
been the case for a few years now, except for
one random year when the Montessori school decided we'll open
half a day on Monday and that's it. But beyond
that they realized that that didn't make any sense, and
(01:36):
so the public schools, the private schools, pretty much everyone
in South Florida is off for the entire week of Thanksgiving,
and we plan to stick around. We have some family
gatherings planned. We have a friends Giving that we've been doing,
I think for the third or fourth year in a
row now. That usually is on Saturday, and I definitely
want to see the Wicked sequel.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Put that on the calendar for sure. Yeah, I need
to shift my mental model of Thanksgiving. So up until
this year, our school district had class on Monday and
Tuesday and a half day Wednesday, So in my mind,
Thanksgiving was not a particularly available weekend or you know,
for travel or anything like that. And plus we all
(02:16):
often do the actual Thanksgiving meal itself with my side
of the family, and everyone's within a few hours of here,
so there's not extensive travel like you just drive to
either We're hosting or a drive to somebody else's house,
but it's a day trip whatever it's going to be,
so we're generally not flying anywhere. However, this year they
switched it. They got rid of half days, which is nice,
(02:40):
so we do not have school on Wednesday, and that
was fine. I was like, oh, okay, well, you know,
I hadn't really built that into my mental model, but fine.
And then I was talking to some people and looked
at it and realized the elementary and middle schools are
actually doing conferences on Tuesday, so it wasn't on the
mass to school district calendar because they don't do like
(03:03):
individual schools calendar days on there. But three of the
four children who are home do not have school on
that day, so and that may be the case in
the future too, in which case, oh my goodness, Like
I think we could go somewhere. I mean, that's like
a major time off, you know. So I'm pondering, like
in the future if we want to take a trip
(03:23):
or something like that. As it is, we're gonna be
sticking around here because I didn't make any last minute
plans for that, and I'm just gonna be working because
I've got a lot of work going on. But yeah,
it's different, different mental models. Sometimes the calendar sneaks up
on you.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And there is that from a work perspective, it can
be difficult. I mean, I'm definitely not off all week
for clinical. I am working Tuesdays, so or Nanny will
be coming that day. I know I'll be recording a
ton on Monday as I'm preparing for my book launch.
And you do have to always remember those work trade offs.
Where winter break is also coming up for us, that's
two weeks off. I do travel for that time, and
(04:00):
it tends to be very busy. From like a annual
planning leader perspective, I guess. So I don't know for me,
like as much as it would be nice to travel,
I think that I'm gonna keep Thanksgiving low key even
though we have a week.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, I mean, there is true we are traveling over
Christmas and there will be time off then too, and
so Thanksgiving comes close before that. So there are trade
offs at this and as always with controlling your own schedules,
like well I can do things, should I do things?
I don't know, so many things to ponder with that,
but we will get started on some of the items
(04:35):
on the holiday fun list. I think we'll wind up
going to Dutch Wonderland, which is a little I mean,
Sarah probably knows this, but it's a small amusement park
around here that also does holiday light show displays. And
they had a flash sale with really cheap tickets. I
mean not when there are seven people, They're never cheap,
but you know, it was cheaper than a lot of
other things could have been. So I got that for
(04:57):
all of us, And we'll probably go to Longwood Gardens,
which is often challenging to get a reservation for Longwood Christmas,
but I got the membership where you don't have to
make reservations. That was my investment in my family's flexibility
for this year. So happy about that. But yeah, are
(05:17):
you guys doing any holiday stuff over Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Or I feel like we kick off our kind of
fun holiday stuff after. So it's just going to be
more family focused in Thanksgiving. Like I want to save
my watching of Elf and our Nutcracker and like that's
for later and Hankah. This year is it's like mid December.
So yeah, I think our more holiday festivities will start
post Thanksgiving, although I do plan on doing a lot
(05:41):
of Black Friday Hanukkah shopping, which we have done in
years past and has been a nice timing.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yeah. Well, I hear that Sarah's kids have already made
their PowerPoint presentations with their gift requests.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Yes, they're quite elaborate. I don't know what that says
about them, but it does make sure a little bit easier.
Although we've made it very clear that just because there
is a slide with something on it does not mean
you will receive said item, because there's a lot of slides.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
As one of my children made a list that was
quite long with astis under it saying, you know, I
do not expect everything on this list. This is just
to give you lots of options to choose from, so
I will then be surprised. So I respect that. I respect. Yeah,
So this episode is going to be some reflections from
our recent Best Laid Plans Live extravaganza, which was in
(06:34):
South Florida in early November. So Sarah, maybe you can
tell a little bit about the background of how Best
Laid Plans Live came to be.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, the idea came to me because Josh and I
have had several kind of couples getaways that turned into
many planning trips. They would often happen around our anniversary,
so midyear or his birthday, which conveniently is towards the
end of the year, and we'd start going through our
calendars and kind of setting and I'm like, you know,
this should be like a whole formalized thing. And I
(07:04):
was very attracted to the idea of a you know,
I talk about kind of planning in proportion to the
level of the time frame that you're planning. So my
yearly planning should really be I don't want to say, elaborate,
but thoughtful and not rushed. And so, you know, I
was doing these with Josh, and I think I might
have said to him or thought about it, like, well,
you know, anybody could do this and I could like
prepackage it. And then I was like, you know, I
(07:27):
wonder if anyone would actually want to come plan with me.
And I also will give a shout out to another
mother Runner because they hosted running retreats that I had
always been like, hm, I kind of want to do
that someday, so haha, won't be doing that, but at
least I got them as inspo and I even emailed
or called Sarah and she told me that running retreat
(07:48):
was incredibly rewarding. This is Sarah from another mother runner,
not myself, but to be careful because retreats are very
expensive and it's not a good business plan. And I
was like, well, okay, but that's fine. I want to
do it anyway, like as long as I come out
even or whatever, I want to see what this is, like,
I'll go for it. And so, I mean, it did
feel kind of risky because I was doing it entirely
(08:09):
on my own. But this was fall of twenty twenty three.
I had already taught the first round of bestleid Plans Academy,
so I knew people were interested in planning with me.
I don't remember if I had actually like floated the
idea to this group or not, but went ahead and
launched the tickets. Worked with a hotel, set up a package.
I had a lot of fear about if you reserve
space and then you don't sell the number of rooms,
(08:31):
then you can be on the hook for them, so
it's actually kind of scary. However, I tried to make
the contract with enough wiggle rooms so that like I
could call the whole thing off if it was like
a total failure, and I wouldn't have to pay for
twenty rooms or something like that anyway, So it all
worked out. People signed up. We had about twenty participants
that first year, including Laura, which was amazing and I
(08:53):
really appreciated that.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
I think she really wanted to come right of course,
of course, and it was a show of support, and
we just had a blast.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Like I remember thinking, oh, you know this, who knows
these people won't get along whatever, And within like fifteen
minutes it was like, oh, oh no, this is fine,
this is going to be fine. I had crafted a
curriculum and a workbook which I then later ended up
repurposing for like an at home version, but it seemed
to really work. There was even more discussion and kind
(09:21):
of cross talk and cross pollination of different ideas and
inspiration than I had even imagined.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
And I had a great time.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But then I also was like, that was so much work,
and you know, not everything's about money, but I think
I might have like barely broken even who was like, wow,
I spent so many hours and it was stressful doing
it on my own. It felt very risky, and I
said to Laura, like I am not entirely sure I
can do this again, and she said, but it was
(09:51):
really really good, Like anything I can do to help,
you know, make it happen, Lisa's what I remember. And
I'm like, do you want to do it with me?
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And I did, Yeah, No, I mean it was a
lot of fun for me the first year going to it.
I mean partly because people who were coming to Sarah's
retreats sometimes knew me as well, and so they This
is actually kind of a fun thing of having put
my life out into the public world for lo these
(10:18):
many years, is that people who listen to or read
you like know enough about your life that you get
to skip like twenty minutes of small talk in your
first conversation because they already know like, oh that you
have these kids or you've had these jobs, and you've
done these things, and so they then start talking about
the things they know you're going to find most interesting.
It's like it makes her so much better conversations. I
was like, oh, well, this is great. These are already
(10:40):
my friends. I mean, they're not really my friends. I
didn't know them yet, but they became them.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Right, They are truly like and now they definitely consider
many of the attendees, I mean really all of them
feel like friends at this point.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Which was unexpected.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, right, Like, I don't think I went in thinking
it was going to feel that way.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Well, and so it was so much fun and so yeah,
I wanted Sarah to do it again, and so I
tell her we would just go split on it. We
would run it together. We would split the upsplits, split
the downside. Right, it's whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
It's been amazing because it feels better doing it as
a team. For me, it feels less stressful, it feels
more fun. I think we make a really fun team.
I'll get like really like in the weeds about something
in Laura is like, ugh, it's fine, Like I feel better.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Well, it's true. I the upside of I mean, so
we hold these things in South Florida, which, of course,
I mean there's upsides that Sarah's local, like she doesn't
have to travel there, which you know, travels its own
special adventure. But on the other hand, that means I
get to excuse myself from some of the details of
like hotel choosing and the like. So you know, there
are pluses and minuses with all of it.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, And we actually ended up moving hotels this year
and it was definitely I'm not saying anything. The prior
hotel was great, but the hotel we moved to was
definitely a notch nicer. I feel like it made the
whole experience more elevated. I got a lot of positive feedback,
but it did take work to move. As you put.
We have a coordinator, Amanda, who is amazing. She was
in attendee as well the first year and has since
(12:09):
come on as an official coordinator role, and she helped
me tour different places and helped me select them and
then also does a lot of the kind of logistics
work during the conference itself, so that even more, I
don't feel like I'm like on the hook for oh,
you know, where's the gluten free option that we requested
at lunch or something like that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yes, we don't have enough forks. Yeah, yeah, so that
is not something that Sarah I have to think about
during the retreated itself. Well, we're going to take a
quick ad break and then we'll be back talking a
little bit more about what happens at Best Laid Plans Live.
(12:53):
So we are back talking about how to dream big
about planning the upcoming year, particularly through the lens of
having just done Best Laid Plans Live, which is a
retreat that Sarah started in twenty twenty three and that
I came on as a co host in twenty twenty
four and repeated in twenty twenty five. So Sarah, talk
about what we actually do at the retreat.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, we'll walk you through in case you want to
create a DIY version or do something like this with friends.
So okay, we spend the first evening and afternoon just
really like getting to know each other, so it's a
lot of icebreaker type stuff. This year we did a
low stakes hot takes activity that was really fun, and
we do like very brief introductions and do some activities
(13:35):
where people can mingle a little bit, and then we
sit down and get all quiet and set some intentions
for the weekend so that people can really think about
what do they want to come away with having accomplished
with this protected time. And by the way, it is
all women that have attended this retreat. We are not
averse to having anybody of any gender register for our retreat,
but so far that is the audience we've gotten, and
(13:57):
many of these women have small kids at home, and
so for them, not only is it the structured planning
content they're here for, it's the space to do so.
And so we want people to take that seriously, and
that's why we do our little intention setting and then
it's Laura's turn.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Yay. Yeah. This year I led people through some calendar analysis.
We had five women track their time for a week,
and I had talked with them before the event through
their schedules, and we'd come up with ideas for them
to try. So we talked about some things that were
working really well in their lives, and then we talked
(14:35):
about some challenges they were having, and particularly we focused
on challenges that might be slightly more broadly applicable. So
among them was like figuring out what your hobby should be,
so not just like, oh, I need to find time
for my hobby. When people are busy enough, they are
(14:56):
often spending so much mental effort on work and family
that they don't even know what they would do for fun.
And so when time starts to appear, like as your
kids get older, you become enough good at your job
that you don't have to put as much mental effort
into certain things, because they kind of run like clockwork
because you've set it up so amazingly, like you have
space to do something else in life, but figuring out
(15:17):
what that is can be complicated. So we talked about that.
We talked about how to not hate life if you
have a long commute, like how a long commute can
be turned into project or gold time. Since I know
we have a number of listeners and people who are
attending a retreat who maybe took jobs over the last
(15:37):
five years that were more fully remote and then have
become less fully remote as the world has emerged from COVID,
And while it's fun to be in the office, if
you maybe purchased your house thinking you had a fully
remote job and are now facing a very long commute
two or three times a week, that can be challenging.
And then spending more time in our zones of genius.
(16:01):
One of the people who was attending our retreat as
a religious leader, and so she's leading her congregation, and
yet because it's sort of a smaller congregation, she's spending
a lot of time on things like furniture assembly and
property management and an administration. In general, we want our
(16:22):
religious leaders to spend more time on the spiritual direction
of their flock, and less time on putting together I
can't furniture, so trying to figure out for all of
us how we can spend more time in our zone
of genius and less on other things.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, and it's really interesting because even though you would
think some of these challenges are so specific, you realize
how truly universal many of them are. And then not
only did Laura offer suggestions, but we got some fantastic
and creative suggestions from all the women around the room
as well, So it ended up being a really, really
fun session. I definitely think we should do that next
year as well.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
And then we had time for coming up with our
list of one hundred dreams and for sharing some of
those in small groups as well. Yes, and then we
have fun.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
So this retreat again is really supposed to be something
you look forward to. So we cap that all off
with the reception the first night, with drinks and fun
foods and stuff like that. Often there's an after party
that I skip. I'm more fun later on, but as
you'll hear, I do like the bulk of the kind
of stand up teaching on the next couple of days,
so I usually need to go to bed on that
(17:24):
first night in order to kind of prepare myself. Okay,
So then on day two, so the first day is
a half day, the second day is a full day.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
It's a Friday.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
We get up early and there's an optional beat yoga,
which Laura and I have enjoyed taking part of for
the last three years now, and then we kind of
head into hardcore planning modes. So there's a workbook and
people get out their pens and we go through various exercises.
We start with visioning type stuff like really long term dreaming,
thinking about what we want our life to look like
(17:53):
down the road and really kind of getting specific about that,
and then zooming back in we look back about how
the year has gone, which projects we are excited to
have completed, which projects we are ready to move on from,
and maybe those projects that we wish we had done
but weren't in the cards for twenty twenty five, and
we have to think about how we might reframe them
(18:14):
or maybe add some more support to get them done.
In twenty twenty six. We do like a big calendar
deep dive, and then we do goal setting, and that's
like a very spat up version because each of these
things is usually kind of heads down time where people
are writing in their workbooks, and then we'll ask people
to share various things, often crowdsourcing, where there's maybe a
little bit of tension or a dilemma for somebody, like oh,
(18:35):
I wanted to do this, but you know it didn't
work out, and anybody have the ideas for how that
might be different This year, We take a break and
then we do a ton of systems talk, and I
actually restructure the retreat a little bit this year because
it was kind of mixed in before where we'd be
doing goal setting and then we'd kind of pivot to
and how are you keeping track of these goals? And
instead we did like all our goal setting kind of
(18:56):
in the morning, and then the afternoon was about like
the life systems that enable some of these things to happen,
like when will you look at your goals lists? And
how do you plan your week? And how do you
handle all the loose ends coming at you and things
like that. It's almost like a little mini Bestaid Plans academy.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Then we relax again so people get a little bit
of downtime, and then we all meet up for dinner,
and then we have one more night, so the next
morning there's a little again we always want people to
be in the right mindset to enjoy themselves a little
bit of outdoor time walking or running, whichever they want.
And then we talk about a lot of just common
hot topics, from time for deep focused work, to sharing
(19:39):
the load with your partner, to managing technology. Meal planning,
that's Laura's favorite part. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
We could run a whole retreat on meal planning and.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Maybe that's the spinoff.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Just kidding.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Anyway, and then there's usually tons of conversation by that
point because everyone really feels like they know each other.
We do some fun stuff like go around the room
and share either like a fun you know, a love
of the week or a word of the year, things
like that, or one big goal we're hoping to be
able to give positive news on the next year. And
then we wrap up and everyone's really really sad to leave,
(20:14):
including me.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Well, and I was sad to leave, but I didn't
get to leave.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
So yeah, that is true. Well, you got to enjoy
some extra time with me.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
I were lucky. I did get to enjoy some extra
time with Sarah. So this was early November. Thankfully we're
through this now, but listeners may recall that the government
shut down and the flight cancelations and such was happening
right at this time, and so a number of people
had delayed or canceled flights. My flight to Philadelphia was canceled,
(20:46):
so I didn't get out till the next day. But
the upside is I got to hang out with Sarah.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I mean, we had thirty attendees and almost all of
them flew in. There were a couple of Florians, but
most were not local, and I think you were the
only one that got stuck overnight.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Okay, say, I'm just blessed.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Yes, but we had a fun dinner and she slept
over in my living room and it was great.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you know, the idea is you
want to come out of this with ideas for the
next year and ways to think about your next year,
and you know, looking at what time is available and
how our goals are going to actually fit in our lives.
I came out of it with a few things. I mean,
we won't spoil our goals episode, but you know, it's
(21:27):
even like random stuff like I want to actually wear
my jewelry. I tend to forget to put it on.
And then you know, I need to plan my next
get together with Sarah, for it's always a treat when
I am coming through a northern winter to February March
head down to Florida for another best of both world's
(21:47):
retreat with Sarah. So I realize, I need to get
that on the calendar. So we have a rough date
for that now.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yes, And I had like a revelation that I can
combine my desire to see fall leaves with my desire
to see my college friends. So going to work on
that and I would say my incomplete but line of
thinking is like I need a running replacement and what
will that be? So I just started really thinking about that.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Yeah, And we have now had some of the same
attendees who have been there for three years, and so
we were starting to hear various goals that people set
in the past that have happened, whether that's homes that
have been remodeled, books published, new jobs landed, and sometimes
people say that they didn't do something but they want
to repeat it, which is fine. I know Sarah's had
(22:30):
the experience of sometimes goals not happening one year and
then she decides to reset it and it eventually does.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, we talk about how if you do have a
goal that wasn't meant you still want to do it,
you probably need to approach it differently, Like whatever you
were throwing at it before wasn't enough, But that doesn't
mean that you need to cross it off the list.
I mean, my book was on my hundred Dreams list
for many years before it came to fruition.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Yeah, well, we're going to take one more quick ad
break and then we'll be back talking about ways you
can kind of diy then if you would like to, well,
(23:14):
we are back talking about our experiences at Best Laid
Plans Live. A few weeks ago or we had thirty
attendees come to South Florida to think through our upcoming
year and meet some great friends, have a good time together. So, Sarah,
does everyone need to come to South Florida? I guess
we can't have everyone who listens to this come, Although
(23:35):
fun as that would be.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
I know we can't. And like side note, like we
keep talking about like do we want to make it bigger?
Because we know more? We did have a waiting list,
and everyone seems to want to come back, but we're
not entirely sure. We're thinking about it, we're thinking about
the structure. But assuming that you are not able to
make it to join us live, there are so many
other things you can do. You can absolutely DEI why
this with your partner again, this started with me and
(23:57):
Josh doing it, So with a friend by yourself, you
can create an agenda for yourself. I think the main
ingredients you need are protected time and an idea or
some kind of structure, whether you make it up or
get it from somebody else, of what you want to plan.
And I think adding a dash of fun and relaxation
really is going to help this be successful and something
(24:18):
that you look forward to. If you want a kind
of very similar version to what we do live, that's
kind of given to you already pre structured. My program
Best Laid Plans at Home Planning twenty twenty six is
basically the same content. The workbook is designed a little
bit differently. Instead of beach Theming, it is ski and
winter Theming this year because it always takes place at
(24:40):
the end of the year, and I'm going for like
cozy lodge vibes instead of palm trees. But it is
really many of the same exercises, a lot of that
same heads down time, me providing it for you via zoom.
And so I really love teaching this course. Every year
it's grown, and I do still like it to be
a size where people can So I do three showings now,
(25:03):
one in December, one in January, and then one I
think it's also in January. That's weekend, so that if
people don't have time during the work week due to
a less flexible work schedule, you can actually catch it
with me. I don't even remember if it's Saturday, air Sunday.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
It iss on my website.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
All that information you can find at the shoebox dot
com slash courses.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and I was thinking about it if I were
going to do this on my own, what elements I
would probably include. I would definitely carve out space for
that list of one hundred dreams, so sort of an
unedited what do I want in the future in my
life then sort of drill it down, like what on
this list do I think might be fun to take
(25:40):
on over the next year, Right, So professionally, what do
I want to be talking about at the end of
the next year that I've done that, I'm going to
be raising my champagne glass to toast how an amazing
a year it was, What like three to five things
would I be excited about? And in my personal life too,
you know, if I'm talking with my face family at
our extended family get together at the end of the
(26:03):
next year, and I'm telling about what we did over
the year, like, well my family did, what was so fun?
What accomplishments or experiences would I be talking about, Like,
these are the highlights of my year over the next year.
And then you know, if there's any sort of long
term projects I like to do every year with you know,
reading or listening to or writing something, so thinking about that,
(26:24):
you know how I could take that big list and
pull it down. I do think it's also helpful to
do a version of like an ideal week schedule, because
whatever goals you are going to set in life have
to fit in the one hundred and sixty eight hours
you have each week. We are not going to become
entirely different people in the new year. We are going
(26:47):
to have many of the same constraints we have currently,
and so you need to sort of analyze your schedule,
not saying everything that's happening now has to happen then,
but roughly the times that are flexible are going to
be the times that are flexible in the future. You
could make some tweaks, but what would those be in
order to free up more space, Maybe you decide because
that's going to suggest some goals in and of itself. Right, Like,
(27:08):
if you have a hobby you want to start doing
on the weekends, but you have young kids, one of
the steps toward that is either going to be working
out a specific trade off time with your partner or
a friend or another family member so that you have
that protected time, or it's going to be hiring a
sitter who can come stay with your kids during that time.
But those are all going to be suggested by doing
(27:29):
that ideal week exercise. So big list, hone it down
to one year, look at the schedule, see where it
can fit in.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I would even also just add look at what's already planned,
because many of us have stuff coming up next year
that might be really big, and if you don't take
those like kind of big rocks into consideration, that's it's
sort of like the ideal year in a way. I
mean not really, but just like all of these goals
have to be grounded in reality, and like if you're
having a baby in March, then that might alter to
(28:00):
forget that, but other medium sized things you might not
think about.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So yeah, I kind of forgotten. One of the things
that's happening this year is, you know, in terms of travel,
like I will probably attend my twenty fifth college reunion
in May, and I don't have to go far, but
it will be a whole long weekend of stuff, and
so I had sort of not really remembered that, so
I was thinking through the year that that would be
(28:24):
coming up. So put that in and it'll be fun.
I'll see people that I haven't seen in a while.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That'll be great. Yeah, your review of the year will
yield little discoveries like that, and then you can.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Plan around them.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
But things you're already excited to do.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Yeah, absolutely. But you'll hear the goals that we set
in our upcoming Goals episode, which Sarah will make sure
that we do.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
We are definitely doing it on the schedule.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So we have this question. We mentioned that list of
one hundred dreams idea that sort of long unedited list
of anything you want to spend more time doing or
goals you want to accomplish over the course of your life.
So Sarah and I have both made several of these,
and a listener asked us, what do you do with
your old list of one hundred dreams? So, Sarah, what
do you do with yours?
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I've have hazardly kept them, like some I've snapped pictures
of and put them in the blog. Some of them
I'll like take a picture and I have a folder
and Apple notes that says it's my Sunday Mimi, and
then I have a bunch of pictures of one hundred
dreams lists there.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I do, however, like to start from scratch when I
do the exercise, because it doesn't take like seven hours
to write a hundred dreams. It probably takes an hour, honestly,
if you're really well. I tend to be quick at
this type of thing, so it takes me about an hour.
And I would rather not necessarily be prompted by what
was on my old list, Like I think be fun
to look at the old list afterward, but actually be like,
(29:40):
as of now, what are the things that I want
to do? So I don't pay tons of attention to
keeping it, and I don't think of it as like
I mean, it is an interesting idea that it's like
a time horizon above the year, and you're going to
select your year list from it, And it sounds like
you do that a little bit more, I don't. I
use it more as like a idea hub off in
the clouds of my brain that will get pulled from
when and I feel like it.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Yeah, So mine are on my blog. I have one
from twenty ten, I have one from twenty fifteen. I
have one from twenty eighteen, which sounds like I'm probably
due to write another one, Sarah. Maybe we need to
both do these soon.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Yeah, although I don't I mean some of them. Is
all of it bloggable? I don't know.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah, No, probably all of us not bloggable, and so
I would need to think that through as well. But
it's kind of fun to look back at the old
ones because a reasonable number of things on the twenty
ten list have happened, some have not, and then some
I realize, like, I have no interest in this anymore.
(30:43):
And that's also good to know, because life changes, and
sometimes it's fun to look through past ones with that
in mind because yeah, you know, totally don't have to
keep our goals forever.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
No, it's just a it's not a life report card either,
It's just a list you generated on a given day,
on a given day.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
All right, So love of the week, Sarah, Mine is
going to be going to live events. I mean, post
pandemic is really cool to see people in person, obviously,
even if there is the risk of flight cancelation. These
are the downsides we sometimes accept in order to see
people in person. And I would tell people it is
(31:24):
often worth getting on a plane. There's often reasonable airfares
to get places. When air travel works, it is very
very fast. I mean like literally I'm in the Philadelphia
airport and like two hours later, I'm in South Florida.
It's just incredible. When it works. There are sometimes complications,
(31:46):
but when it works, it's great. So if you have
friends you would like to get together with, you don't
necessarily need to be so precious about this. Like you
could just choose a weekend, get on a plane on
Friday evening and come back Sunday night and go see
them and you'd probably really enjoy it.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Definitely, Well, my level of the week, I'm going a
little basic here. I had book club last night, and
I'm just so happy I have a book club. Like
it's just a fun thing to have on the calendar,
and I hope I continue to do it going forward.
And this is your encouragement that you know, if you're
telling yourself a story that like you can't do something
like that, visit a friend or be part of a
(32:25):
community group because I don't know, it would be a
pain to fit it in question yourself, like what are
the actual barriers?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, because you can probably make it happen. And just
to shout out here, We're going to be doing a
couple book club picks with our Patreon community for Best
of Both Worlds over the next year. We'll be publishing
our curriculum for twenty twenty six very soon.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
And I'm super excited about it.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
It's more interactive. I think like we are going to
you know, it's obviously voluntary, but we're going to be
hosting basically challenges every single month with follow up on
those things, and I think people are gonna love it.
I'm excited for it.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah. So for any new listeners, our podcast, The Best
of Both Worlds has a Patreon community, so you can
go over to patreon dot com and search for that
Best of Both Worlds podcasts. We have a very active
forum where we have usually three discussions a week on
a topic related to work in life and people, our
(33:26):
general age of building careers, raising families, things that might
be of interest to us. And then we have monthly
Zoom meetups. We get to chat about these topics in
a more interactive way. And it's just been so much
fun to meet listeners and some of whom have come
to Best Laid Plans Live, but not everyone, and so
we get to meet other people as well.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yes, and it's always fun when the other direction happens
when you know someone from Patreon and then you're like,
oh my god, you're real and you meet them.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, So encourage people to check that out. We'd love
to have more folks join us over the next year. Well,
this has been Best of Both Worlds. We have been
talking Best Laid Plans Live, how it worked, and how
you might diy your own version of this, but we
will most likely be doing a end of twenty twenty
six Best Laid Plans Live Planning twenty twenty seven. If
(34:15):
you want to think about that. Put that on your
radar for the next year. We'll probably announce this signups
in March, so stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
For that if you want to save the dates, probably
November fifth through seventh.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, all right, well, this has been best of both worlds.
We'll be back next week with more on making work
and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you can.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us
next time for more on making work and life work together.
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