December 10, 2024 • 32 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah record live together! They take turns alternating their favorite life hacks, from the philosophical (be okay repeating certain things, if you love them) to the mundane (keyboard shortcuts and apps)!
In the Q&A, a listener writes in asking about activities for tweens and teens - what are some things this age group will be excited to do with the family?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
This episode is airing in early mid December of twenty
twenty four. Sarah and I are actually here to gather
in my recording closet, my zoom room as it were
with my lovely You can't see this, but to book
wallpaper on the back, always a fun thing to have.
But we're sitting very close together for good friends. Hopefully
we are both able to be heard in this one microphone,
(01:05):
so welcome to my closet, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, I'm trying to make sure my voice isn't exactly
I don't know. We have about twelve inches.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yees EQUI distant both to this microphone as we sit
here in this tiny space. But today we are going
to be talking about life hacks, so taking a bit
of a breather between the holiday stuff. We've been talking
about the Goal episodes, which of course they're coming up
later this month. We're going to be talking about ways
we want to you know, that we use to make
(01:32):
our lives easier, little tricks that have been helpful to us.
But first, just a quick life update. So mid December, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What's going on? So much is going on. So much
is going on, and it's all fun stuff, so I
cannot complain about any of it. But we will have
just celebrated my husband's fiftieth birthday, which we're doing as
a big family celebration. Well, this is airing afterwards, so
I won't spoil anything. But his friend is flying from
across the country and he doesn't know that yet, so
(02:04):
it's going to be really really fun. And then right
after that and after this episode airs, I'll be running
my second marathon of twenty twenty four, my sixth marathon total.
We will see how that goes in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, is that going to be cooler than I mean,
it's the hope that that's I mean, it will obviously
be as cool as like Traver's study Michigan, probably.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
But it could be. So Jacksonville is like almost in Georgia. Okay,
it is really up top there, and as you remember,
my Traver's City Marathon was at the end of May,
so it was actually I was probably even more nervous
about that weather than this weather. But I think both
of them have the potential to be amazing, and both
of them have the potential to be kind of a letdown.
(02:45):
So by the time this airs, feel free to pull
up the forecast for Jacksonville for December fourteenth, and you
can either celebrate on my behalf or feel bad for me.
How do you feel about your training so far? You know,
it's funny because I thought it was going pretty badly
until like mid November, and then I've had some really
really good runs lately because our weather finally became reasonable,
(03:09):
and so I don't know, I don't see a pr
but I think I could come fairly close to my time,
which would give me a very solid Boston qualifier and
likely like actual matriculent time for twenty twenty six, since
I am now in the upper age bracket that I
get more time.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Ah, yes, the upper forties, so you get like a
whole extra five minutes or something. It would have been
ten minutes, but because the standard shifted by five minutes,
it is only five.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But that's okay. I already had somewhat of a buffer.
It just wasn't quite enough, and this time I think
it will be enough. It'll be enough that use all right, well,
fingers crossed.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You can check in on the update for that Sarah's
blog a couple days after this airs.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We will all find out together how she did.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I think it's so cool that she's doing this and
training seriously for stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I am not training for any marathons.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I ran a half marathon in October, and I feel
maybe I will never do that again.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
But you know, I think ten k's might be my
max at this point. Now. I think that would be fine.
But I am singing a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I will be singing in three different concerts plus a
Christmas Eve service over the course of the next few weeks,
which is really exciting with its air, as I will
have done the first one.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It's a service of carols.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
That I'm doing with a different choir than I've sung
with before, so that'll be kind of fun, and then
hopefully doing the B Minor Mass over New Year's Eve. Yeah,
singing in Christmas Eve, doing a concert of lessons and
carols with my church. So just a lot of singing,
a lot of songs. But it's so fun because this
is the time of the year when you want to
be singing, and it's all these familiar works, even if
(04:45):
it's new arrangements of them. So it's been really fun
to have all that singing. But yeah, it's a lot
of time. I mean a lot of time because now
I'm doing Monday rehearsals with this other choir, so I
have to drive downtown usually leaving here around six fifteen,
parking in the garage six forty five, getting there for
seven o'clock rehearsal. We rehearse to seven to nine thirty,
(05:08):
go get the car, come home, so it's ten o'clock
or a little later. And then Thursday nights the rehearsals
are are seven to nine at my church.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's a lot closer, so I only have to leave
at six forty five, but it's you know, it's still yeah,
and especially as you get close to the event, sometimes
may get them. We have extra rehearsals, the dress rehearsals,
and then the days themselves. I mean, the concerts are
multiple hours, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's probably not quite marathon level in terms of time,
but it might be getting close.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So yeah, but you love it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I love it, And when you love things, you want
to fit them into life.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Still enjoying singing with Jasper in the church choir. We're
singing together, and yeah, doing a lot of like college
application stuff with him. So yeah, that's life around here
right now. But so life hacks. Some of these are
pretty when you look these up online. Some of them
are like hilarious, like you know, uses for a safety
(06:00):
clip you didn't you know, safety pin you didn't even
know existed, or something like I didn't want to know those.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
No, these life hacks are the kind that, like, I
don't know. As I was listening min, I'm like, that's
so obvious. But then I'm like, well maybe not, maybe
I don't know, can let us know?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, and maybe if you've listened to every episode of
Best of Both Worlds, you may have heard us mention
some of these before. But you know, we've probably repeated
ourselves a lot over the last seven years. So if
you're still with us, thank you, or you appreciate all
of you, we appreciate you very much.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
All right, Sarah, you can kick it off. Oh okay,
I'm going to go with the travel one, since I
traveled here today very early, I might add, so I
have gotten to a point in life when I liked
a default to a single airline because it's just easier
to have one go to place to look for flights.
I like having status on one airline, and there's no
(06:51):
way I'd be able to build up status on multiple airlines,
so it's nice. And then once it's more fun to
fly on that airline because you have some status and
like why would you stray? Plus once you have some points,
then it's like faster to get anyway, so it makes
things easier. And like, yes, sometimes if it's obviously not
the right choice, like it doesn't fly NonStop, we'll do
something else. But yeah, in my old age, I have
(07:11):
like really enjoyed just being like I fly one airline. Joy.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, Well, I think it's it's more of a choice
for you because you have multiple airports around you that
you might potentially fly out of.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right, this hack does not I mean for some people
it's like we have one airport and this is only
the hub for whatever. I have a lot. I have
three airports in your meeting, so that's a hack too.
Look at all the smaller airports in your by. I
didn't figure that out until just a couple of years ago.
I was like, we can fly from West Palm, and
now I fly from West Palm all time, smaller, quieter.
(07:44):
How far is it from you? An hour an hour
and Fort Lauderdale is Fort Lauderdale's thirty minutes and Miami
is honestly also an hour a traffic but if you're
doing like a big international flight, you'd probably go from Miami.
But a lot of the domestic ones, yeah, there's certainly
a reasonable amount of service from Fort Lauderdale. Well, because
I'm an in Philadelphia and there's major international airport here
is an American hub, that kind of means by default,
(08:06):
like I'm flying on American unless there's a really good
reason not to, which is that American doesn't fly wherever
it is direct, in which case, rather than transfer, I
drive to Newark because Newark is an hour and fifteen
minutes away.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So kind of just a little bit more than your
Miami deal, and that is a United hub, so then
I am always on United if I am going there,
I tend not to be on.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Any other airline other than that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm sure, I'm sure the other airlines are great, they're
just not here, so I don't fly.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's actually a good hack though, to drive and fly direct.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yes, yes, oh, to drive it, yeah, I mean, because
the odds of something going wrong are just so much
bigger if you're transferring somewhere and you can get stuck
in an airport that is not anywhere that you want
to be, right Like, I mean, if you're flying directory,
either are at your house, which is fine, you just
go home, or if you're at your destination, presumably you
(09:03):
either knew someone there or there was something you were
doing there, like you have some connection there, so like
you can go back.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
To that whatever that was.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Whereas if you're stuck in O'Hare, you're just like at
the stupid hotel that's near O'Hara that I've been at
more nights than I care to be.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Anyway, we digress, all right, next next on me.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All right, you got bonus life acts there, so this
is occasionally I get some pushback on this, but just
wash everything together on cold because most things don't bleed. Now,
if you have a kid who bought some like cheap item,
that's fusia and like, you know, you suspect that it's
going to bleed, like, maybe do that separately. But if
(09:46):
it's something that's been worn and washed more than once,
if you wash everything together uncold, it will probably be fine.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I've never had a problem with it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The other hack related to that is if each person
has an individual load, then there is no sorting. So
I'm not saying you should always do this because sometimes
you know, you just need to throw a lot of
people's different stuff in there, But particularly if your house
doesn't have a ton of people, it might work to
(10:15):
instead of doing four mixed loads in the course of
the week, do four loads of each one person stuff
and then nobody has to sort anything and.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You're all happier. Yeah, that's actually I should think about that.
I hate the sorting, and we absolutely do a mixed
load almost every single day, So maybe you need to
think about some kind of a rotation.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yes, a rotation, because it's just the same, like to
do every three days or every four days, like the
person has the same number of clean clothes.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's just you know, it's only that you can't then
like count on like every single day, having every single
option available to you. But like probably you can get
your house lot.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah all right, Sarah, you do another before we take
a break. Sure, Okay, when you are running low on
something you use regularly, replace it with at least two.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So I think this is an over buyer underbuyer thing
where like why but I like, we were running low
on running gels because, as I mentioned, the marathon and
my husband's also training, so we got a lot of
gels being consumed and I was like, yeah, we're getting
it on subscribe and say, but let me just build
up a giant buffer. I'm gonna buy like two extra boxes,
because like why buy one when you know you're gonna
(11:24):
use it anyway. I guess this would also not be
the best hack if you live in a tiny New
York apartment, but I definitely don't, so yeah, replace it
if it's like something you're gonna use, like get that
build that backstock.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, I've done this with I mean, realizing things like
you're going to use a lot of sunscreen in the summer,
so just buy extras and put them anywhere you might
use them. Or hand sanitizer, for instance, which we use
a lot of in the winter. You know, you just
put it by a lot of them, put them anywhere
you might use, and the extras will nudge you to
actually use them. I was just gonna say one related
(11:59):
to that about over buying though. If you have an
item that you are seeing that you truly love and
it is the sort of thing that might wear out,
like a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, a
particular running pant or something like that, and you see
you really love it, like, go ahead and buy more
(12:19):
of it, right because at some point they're going to
stop making it and you are going to be very
very sad. But that said, here's the real hack part.
If you can't find it because they've stopped making it,
go on eBay or Poshmark, because often people are selling
stuff there they use the NWT as new with tags,
Like I don't want to buy new like us stuff necessarily,
(12:41):
but like they're reselling it new with tags, and so
then you can find stuff that is no longer being manufactured,
and I would.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Say if you find it, you should buy two buy two.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
All right, Well, with that thought, we're going to take
a quick ad break and we will be right back
with a few more life hacks.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
All right, well, we are back.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Talking all things life hacks. So here is one related
to this season, this time of year we are coming
into the holidays, which is that you can buy nice
gift tags for your immediate family and then save and
reuse them year to year. So if you have a
place in your house where you store Christmas decorations or
something like that, you can just if you have nice
(13:34):
gift tags, not you know, like a little sticker that's
gonna get ripped off with the paper, but you know,
something more substantial. You are going to be giving gifts
to the same members of your immediate family every single year.
So something that says from Mommy and Daddy to Alex
has a shelf life of decades if it doesn't fall apart.
(13:55):
So we save a box of these, and then I
don't have to buy new ones, or I don't at
least have to buy as many new ones each year,
and it's just a nice little upgrade. There are also
other things with gifts you can reuse. I save gift
bags from kid parties. So if my kids are having
a birthday party and their friends give them a gift
in a gift bag, usually people don't write on the
(14:17):
bag itself, like they don't put the kid's name on
the bag itself.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's either in a card in there or they attach
a tag to the bag.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So yeah, just reuse it because it's only been used
once or unless they've been reusing it too, which is fine.
Like the more use you can get out of it,
the better, and then you always have something that you
can wrap an odd shaped object in for the future.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I love it. Plus the reuse gift tags, like there
could be a nostalgia factor too. It's not even just
that it's like nice to already have it, but like,
oh the Christmas gift tags, like I've seen those before. Yep, yep,
all right, Sarah, here's all right, Okay. This is one
where I'm like, I think probably most people have tried
this or do this. But then again, I often go
(14:56):
to Starbucks and I go and I pick up my
pre ordered mobile thing, and I see people standing there
annoyed waiting for their drinks. So maybe everyone doesn't know this,
but and I'm not knocking, like you know, the experience
of going to Starbucks and ordering and sitting down. Sometimes
that's what you want. But if you just want to
procure your Starbucks, ordering ahead on the mobile app is
like the best thing ever. And I actually think it's
(15:17):
faster if you go in the store versus drive through.
So I'm very grateful and happy that we have a
Starbucks on campus at our hospital. So if I want
to get it, like in the morning, right before I
start seeing patients, I know I can order it when
I'm at the kids' school, knowing that I'm about like
fifteen minutes from work, and then when I get there,
I can pick it up and it's all hot and ready.
It has my name on it. And yeah, you also
(15:38):
get like deals through the app. So if you frequent
Starbucks and you haven't done it this way, give it
a try. You may love it. You can still sit
there if you want to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, and you I mean just sort of piggybacking on
that additional hack you have about using apps in general,
Why don't you mention that.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, a lot of times, you know, you can always
go to American Airlines and book on the website, but
sometimes these companies have apps that make things even easier.
Like examples would be Starbucks or the Marriott app. The
Bonvoy app is like super super easy, and I'm sure
all other hotel chains, et cetera. So if there's a
kind of brand or empire that you frequent that has
an app, try it because a lot of times that
(16:15):
process can be more streamlined than trying to just go
online and do it at their native website.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So Starbucks is a great example of that exactly. So
here's one for people who get cold. This is a
handful of hacks for people who get.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Cold a lot.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Turn on the seat warmer in your car. Now, again,
this may be something that like ninety nine percent of
people knew about, but I didn't know about this in
my car until about like seven years into owning my car, Like,
what's this little toggle thing on the side, And it
turns out that it warms your seat And that is
just like so nice if I am driving people around
(16:49):
in the cold and all of a sudden, I am
feeling nice and toasty. Two other things with that, if
you are a person who is often cold getting out
of the shower, use two towels. You put one on
your hair, one on your body, and that way you
are not having to unwrap.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Your body to dry your hair.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know it, just like everything can stay warm and
wrapped up and covered and you are not cold. You
should also purchase hot hands in bulk for your pockets.
Just put them by the door. If you are going
outside for any length of time in the winter, you
can just stick these little things in your coat pockets.
Because people who are cold, it doesn't matter like how
(17:34):
thick of an item you are wearing. Like you could
have the best coat in the world, you have the
best boots, best socks, best mints, it's not gonna help
because you personally are not creating enough warmth. And so
all those things are premised on the idea that they
are trapping warmth that then keeps you warm. But if
you are not producing that warmth that you know is
enough to make you feel warm, then you need an
(17:55):
additional source. And this is where like the seat warmer
in the car or the hot hands in your pocket
comes in.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It can makes the experience much more pleasant. I love
those hot hands on ski trips m hmm.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Essential, although I don't think you can check them, I
mean pack them with you, like in your carry on or.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Something you Yes, you are correct, and it actually like
depends on the airport. Okay, but you can check them.
I believe you just can't carry them on or it's
the opposite. I don't know, look it up. We had
to make the sub last time, but we did successfully
bring you right, okay, either in our carry on or
check following the rules to Montana. I just don't remember
which it was.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, but I'm any ski store at the lodge will
sell them too. I mean it's not like yeah, yeah,
so you can buy them there if you needed to.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
All Right, So what's your next one? All Right, I'm
going to go with text expansion, which I don't think
you like.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So I don't just like it, just it's not as
big a part of my life as yours.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So maybe you can explain. So I use this into context.
Number one. At work, it's huge, So we use EPIC,
which is the most common electronic health record, and if
you're on it, you probably do this, But if you're
on something else, and maybe it's not as obvious. There
should be some way of creating little shortcuts to type,
like one word and then it turns into a whole
(19:06):
giant template. Or multiple paragraphs of texts, and I have
accumulated so many of these phrases over the course of
my time being at work that really almost anything I'm
gonna explain to a patient, I can just type like
dot shoot thyroid and it has my whole thing, and
then I can edit it and customize it for whatever
patient that is. So that has definitely kind of like
bled into my rest of my life. And I found
(19:27):
out through Mac You just it's actually through the keyboard menu,
and it's shockingly easy to do. But I even have
like some of the some of the courses I do.
There's certain emails that get sent out, but I want
to be able to customize them, so I don't want
it sent automatically. But I I can type like just
like welcome BLP, and I'll have that'll generate like a
whole multiple paragraph thing that I can then customize and
(19:49):
change and whatever. So I have multiple of these, and
they definitely save me a ton of time. I mean,
the other thing I could do is like go and
find it old email and copy and paste, but this
is so much quicker. I've also to do it for
like my administrative job, like we'd have a million residency
applicants anytime they're kind of sort of saying the same
thing again to people, but it's not totally automated. This
is like a game changer game two arm.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, yeah, all right, well I bet that does save
a ton of time if you have to type the
same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Not typing the same thing over and over again sounds
like it, And I agree with you that, like I
don't need like TMO to be like tomorrow. Like that's
not going to help. It's more like, oh, I can
type one word and I have like six paragraphs. Yes, yes,
that's a real, real benefit for sure. Cool.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So here's one that's also a holiday related again because
this episode is airing in December, but if you are
in a Christmas mood at some point other than December,
which I had a child who was excited about it
even in July, one thing you can do is get
old December editions of magazines from the library, right because
(20:50):
your library has subscriptions and probably dating back many years
to a number of consumer magazines. And so if you
are thinking to your I would love a December Better
Homes and Garden right now, you can go to your
library and get it. You can actually do a lot
of magazines and such on the Libby app too, So
if you find yourself hankering for Christmas content in August,
(21:14):
you can just look it up, get some holiday magazines,
and right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There you are in the mood. I wonder if I
could look up like nineteen nineties editions of sase. Oh,
I'm sure you can. Oh yeah, it would be really fun. Well,
I no, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I don't know that all of those would be digitized
on a library collection. I mean you might have to
go to a different library somebody would, like in the
state of Florida. I'm sure there's somebody who has digitized
someone is archive sass.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes, but you might need to be a little bit
more strategic about finding something like that. Yeah, yeah, love
it all right. Here's a like very like I don't
know basic, but I didn't figure it out for a while,
so I'm thrown in there, which is that if I
have a kid that has a sports that are going
a little bit late when we're pleating dinner for everyone,
just plate that kids dinner too and have it already
(22:01):
set as a plate to be heated, versus having to
like go back in and get it out and get
the serving spoon again, and blah blah blah. It's way
way faster. I guess. Like the only caveat is if
the kid comes home and is like I don't want that,
which does sometimes happen, then okay, but then you can
always put it back and then you still would have
had to have gotten out the thing. So I feel
like most of the time you win. But what if
things are different temperatures on the plate, then I would
(22:22):
just do the heated part and then I would take
the salad or whatever, like the whole part is gotcha,
all right?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, pre prepping plates is good in general. I always
do that for at least the two younger boys, like
everyone else, can kind of make their own plates, and
I trust they won't completely avoid like all fruits and vegetables.
But Henry needs stuff set out for him and Alex
has his own personal taste, which you know, I at
(22:47):
least try to deal with. But what that means is
I'm individually plating their stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So yeah, big fan of that. All right. Here's something.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
If you need to remember anything in your life, you
should set an alarm like on your phone, Like if
something you're like, I'm gonna need to pick somebody up
at this time, And of course the alarm.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Isn't specific, like it's just gonna ding.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But what's gonna happen is you're gonna remember, like, oh,
I need to do something, and then you will go
back and figure out what it is you need to do,
or hopefully you have good notes somewhere, but it will
jolt you out of what you are doing. You can
also write things on your hand. I did this in
school a lot, like if I, you know, was a
when I was younger, like writing something I absolutely had
(23:30):
to remember on my hand. But I mean, you do
look at your hand, right, And so I have done
this with a kid in sort.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Of like a low key.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Manner, like if they need to remember to go home
in the car line instead of the bus, just encouraging
them to write a CE on their hand like nobody
else knows what it is. So people aren't looking and
pointing like why are you writing all over your hand?
It's just, you know, a little thing, but it nudges
them to remember, all right, I have like.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
A deep one. And then we'll take a break to
embrace repetition when it works and this is a fine balance.
Laura has talked about how if you repeat things too
often and lead the monotonous life, it can go too
fast and then you like blink and you miss it.
And I get that, and at the same time, there
are certain things where like if you know something works,
to just like stick with it and make your life easier.
(24:14):
So I have a few examples of this where I
don't feel it causes the issue, Laura says, but instead
brings me joy because it's like, these are things I'm
repeating because I love them. Number One signature dish. Just
have something you always make for me, It's key lime pie.
If I'm asked to bring something, if I have time
to make it, I'm making a key line pie. Or
like wearing scrubs to work and making that executive decision
that I just wear fig scrubs and a Figs jacket
(24:37):
to work and have a color rotation and I don't
have to think. And then this is maybe a controversial one,
but I'm really and We've talked about this, but I'm
super into like repeating vacation destinations. If I find a
place I absolutely love like, I'll keep going there. That's good.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
All right, We're going to take a quick ad break
and then Sarah will end us off with just one
or two quick more and then we'll go into our question.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
All right. Well we are back.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Sarah and I are in the same closet together in
my office recording here.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So we've been talking life hacks.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Sarah, why don't you just do your last two.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
To end with that and then we'll go into our
question section. All right. My second to last was to
set the next date. This applies to basically everything doctor's appointments,
book club, check ins with your teacher, a date with
a friend, but really anything that you do that you
want to do again, you might as well at least
set a tentative next date. If it needs to move,
it needs to move, that's fine, But if it's something
(25:43):
you intend to repeat, it's just so much easier to
already have it on the calendar and then you can
always modify if needed. So highly recommend that. And then finally,
this is a hack that I haven't done. I think
one of our Patreon members mentioned this and I was like, yes, yes, yes,
consider putting socks by the door. If this tends to
be the rate limiting step in getting out the door
(26:05):
in the morning. This is absolutely our rate limiting step
for sometimes all three children and they have to wear
socks to school. They're not allowed to just wear crocs
or sandals, even though climate wise they could. Often my
kids end up wearing their socks in their hand and
they're going in bare feet on a gravel drive. But like,
it is such a problem, and I could put the
socks by the door and I will. Yes, all right,
(26:28):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Just one more quick one for me, which is that
if you don't want your beverage to order the water
down in a restaurant, you can always ask for light ice,
and in your own home you can make ice cubes
out of other things in order to keep a beverage
from being watered down. So some people do you know
ice coffee, though, will freeze coffee in an ice tray
(26:52):
because then you can use that. I've seen people use
grapes like frozen grapes in wine or something like that.
But of course you can also buy plastic ice cubes
that will not melt if you don't want water and
whatever it.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is, frozen grapes and wine.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I love that, yeah, all right, So moving on to
our question, Sarah, do you have that?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yes, it is. How do you find planning activities to
be different or teens? I've noticed there isn't as much
urgency because they aren't toddlers bouncing off the walls, and
a lot of things plan themselves because it's a sports schedule,
et cetera, and we all have to follow it. However,
for that downtime between sports seasons or activity seasons, what
can you plan as a family? What might you suggest? Yeah,
(27:40):
tough question.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Well, on some level, I think teens don't necessarily always
want you planning things for them because they will have
things they want to do with their friends, and friend
plans tend to happen last minute. So you know, if
you've planned a family afternoon at whatever, attract the odds
that one of your teens is like, but Jodie's having
(28:04):
a get together over there, and I want to go
to it, Like and you know, are you going to
have a knockdown, drag out fight that you want them
to go to the aquarium with you? Like they're not
going to go to the aquarium with you? Like this
is just you know, that ship is sailed by the
time they are mostly adult people. I think concentrating on
a few sort of bigger, high quality things you can
(28:26):
do as a family, and that ideally are things that
they truly want to do as well. So it might
be going to a concert, it might be going to
a sports event.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That they are very excited about, a.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Weekend trip somewhere, and just putting a couple of those
in a year can help you feel like you still
have family activities, even if it's not like every Saturday,
you guys are going to the pumpkin patch together or
anything along those lines anymore, and then really just being
attuned to what they enjoy doing as quick activities. Two
of my kids wind up going to Old Navy shopping
(29:01):
that they tend to like their clothes, and they're relatively cheap,
so I don't mind it as a destination to go
pick up random things. And obviously Starbucks is eternal. You're
going to Starbucks multiple times per week, I believe at
this point.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And I don't how teens, but I have an almost teen,
and I feel like the tween years are sort of similar.
But I feel like, don't even discount stuff like going
out to dinner, like, yes, they may be hanging with
their friend or working on a school project or something.
But if they're coming home and then the family's going
out somewhere, then that still counts as time, even though
it wasn't you know, the same kind of outing you
might have had when they were toddler's bouncing off the walls,
(29:37):
and that's okay. This might be a time that they're
doing some social stuff, you get to do some of
your own stuff, and you're still getting it together at
the end. I think family vacations to me are super
important to me for this reason because it's like maybe
the last vestiges of some protected time, and if you're
going somewhere that they love, then they're excited to do that.
And then you had also mentioned the idea of sometimes
bringing a friend in.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, you know, if you're taking you're thinking, like
take a kid to a movie, like it's not that
hard to get an extra ticket, and then have the
kids invite somebody. You know, that's an option for them
to do, and they'll probably be a lot more excited
about it if they're bringing a friend. I would also say,
like as kids get older, sometimes they're gone with dinner stuff,
if they have late activities or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But if they are home.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
They become much more pleasant dinner companions when they're not
throwing food on the floor anymore or you know, running
up after one minute because they've decided they're done with
dinner at this point. So I found that, you know,
we're actually sitting around the table a little bit more,
my teenagers and I and like a weekday or something
and just.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Chatting and it's kind of nice.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
So yeah, I again, it's not like going apple picking
necessarily or the adventurers who would have planned when they
were little, but it's still quality time and just being
open and available to that and noticing when it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Happens can go a long way. It still counts, It
still counts. It all still counts.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So I guess love of the week, I mean, I
don't know, do our life hacks kind of count as that.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I don't know. I'll use the Starbucks mobile apps Starbucks
mobile app as your love of the week. Well, I
love that too.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I definitely enjoy having that whenever it is, But I
like recording in person as well. It's so nice to
be able to do this occasionally. So my love of
the week is the fact that Sarah's extended family lives
pretty close to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Me, because yeah, it's very convenient. It's very convenient.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We may both be running the Thanksgiving five k at
the local y. Right, you're running that or you're not
going to run it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I'm running that unless it's pouring rain. That's true, that's
part right. I may not dine out what happened? Did
we run it? Did we not? What was Sarah's time?
How many minutes behind her was Laura? Let's not ask
that question? All right?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been
talking life hacks this week. We will be back next
week with more on making work in life fit together.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
This has the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
This episode is airing in early mid December of twenty
twenty four. Sarah and I are actually here to gather
in my recording closet, my zoom room as it were
with my lovely You can't see this, but to book
wallpaper on the back, always a fun thing to have.
But we're sitting very close together for good friends. Hopefully
we are both able to be heard in this one microphone,
(01:05):
so welcome to my closet, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yes, I'm trying to make sure my voice isn't exactly
I don't know. We have about twelve inches.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yees EQUI distant both to this microphone as we sit
here in this tiny space. But today we are going
to be talking about life hacks, so taking a bit
of a breather between the holiday stuff. We've been talking
about the Goal episodes, which of course they're coming up
later this month. We're going to be talking about ways
we want to you know, that we use to make
(01:32):
our lives easier, little tricks that have been helpful to us.
But first, just a quick life update. So mid December, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
What's going on? So much is going on. So much
is going on, and it's all fun stuff, so I
cannot complain about any of it. But we will have
just celebrated my husband's fiftieth birthday, which we're doing as
a big family celebration. Well, this is airing afterwards, so
I won't spoil anything. But his friend is flying from
across the country and he doesn't know that yet, so
(02:04):
it's going to be really really fun. And then right
after that and after this episode airs, I'll be running
my second marathon of twenty twenty four, my sixth marathon total.
We will see how that goes in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Yeah, is that going to be cooler than I mean,
it's the hope that that's I mean, it will obviously
be as cool as like Traver's study Michigan, probably.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
But it could be. So Jacksonville is like almost in Georgia. Okay,
it is really up top there, and as you remember,
my Traver's City Marathon was at the end of May,
so it was actually I was probably even more nervous
about that weather than this weather. But I think both
of them have the potential to be amazing, and both
of them have the potential to be kind of a letdown.
(02:45):
So by the time this airs, feel free to pull
up the forecast for Jacksonville for December fourteenth, and you
can either celebrate on my behalf or feel bad for me.
How do you feel about your training so far? You know,
it's funny because I thought it was going pretty badly
until like mid November, and then I've had some really
really good runs lately because our weather finally became reasonable,
(03:09):
and so I don't know, I don't see a pr
but I think I could come fairly close to my time,
which would give me a very solid Boston qualifier and
likely like actual matriculent time for twenty twenty six, since
I am now in the upper age bracket that I
get more time.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Ah, yes, the upper forties, so you get like a
whole extra five minutes or something. It would have been
ten minutes, but because the standard shifted by five minutes,
it is only five.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
But that's okay. I already had somewhat of a buffer.
It just wasn't quite enough, and this time I think
it will be enough. It'll be enough that use all right, well,
fingers crossed.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You can check in on the update for that Sarah's
blog a couple days after this airs.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
We will all find out together how she did.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
I think it's so cool that she's doing this and
training seriously for stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I am not training for any marathons.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I ran a half marathon in October, and I feel
maybe I will never do that again.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
But you know, I think ten k's might be my
max at this point. Now. I think that would be fine.
But I am singing a lot.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I will be singing in three different concerts plus a
Christmas Eve service over the course of the next few weeks,
which is really exciting with its air, as I will
have done the first one.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
It's a service of carols.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
That I'm doing with a different choir than I've sung
with before, so that'll be kind of fun, and then
hopefully doing the B Minor Mass over New Year's Eve. Yeah,
singing in Christmas Eve, doing a concert of lessons and
carols with my church. So just a lot of singing,
a lot of songs. But it's so fun because this
is the time of the year when you want to
be singing, and it's all these familiar works, even if
(04:45):
it's new arrangements of them. So it's been really fun
to have all that singing. But yeah, it's a lot
of time. I mean a lot of time because now
I'm doing Monday rehearsals with this other choir, so I
have to drive downtown usually leaving here around six fifteen,
parking in the garage six forty five, getting there for
seven o'clock rehearsal. We rehearse to seven to nine thirty,
(05:08):
go get the car, come home, so it's ten o'clock
or a little later. And then Thursday nights the rehearsals
are are seven to nine at my church.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
That's a lot closer, so I only have to leave
at six forty five, but it's you know, it's still yeah,
and especially as you get close to the event, sometimes
may get them. We have extra rehearsals, the dress rehearsals,
and then the days themselves. I mean, the concerts are
multiple hours, so yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
It's probably not quite marathon level in terms of time,
but it might be getting close.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So yeah, but you love it.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
I love it, And when you love things, you want
to fit them into life.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Still enjoying singing with Jasper in the church choir. We're
singing together, and yeah, doing a lot of like college
application stuff with him. So yeah, that's life around here
right now. But so life hacks. Some of these are
pretty when you look these up online. Some of them
are like hilarious, like you know, uses for a safety
(06:00):
clip you didn't you know, safety pin you didn't even
know existed, or something like I didn't want to know those.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
No, these life hacks are the kind that, like, I
don't know. As I was listening min, I'm like, that's
so obvious. But then I'm like, well maybe not, maybe
I don't know, can let us know?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Yeah, and maybe if you've listened to every episode of
Best of Both Worlds, you may have heard us mention
some of these before. But you know, we've probably repeated
ourselves a lot over the last seven years. So if
you're still with us, thank you, or you appreciate all
of you, we appreciate you very much.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
All right, Sarah, you can kick it off. Oh okay,
I'm going to go with the travel one, since I
traveled here today very early, I might add, so I
have gotten to a point in life when I liked
a default to a single airline because it's just easier
to have one go to place to look for flights.
I like having status on one airline, and there's no
(06:51):
way I'd be able to build up status on multiple airlines,
so it's nice. And then once it's more fun to
fly on that airline because you have some status and
like why would you stray? Plus once you have some points,
then it's like faster to get anyway, so it makes
things easier. And like, yes, sometimes if it's obviously not
the right choice, like it doesn't fly NonStop, we'll do
something else. But yeah, in my old age, I have
(07:11):
like really enjoyed just being like I fly one airline. Joy.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, Well, I think it's it's more of a choice
for you because you have multiple airports around you that
you might potentially fly out of.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Right, this hack does not I mean for some people
it's like we have one airport and this is only
the hub for whatever. I have a lot. I have
three airports in your meeting, so that's a hack too.
Look at all the smaller airports in your by. I
didn't figure that out until just a couple of years ago.
I was like, we can fly from West Palm, and
now I fly from West Palm all time, smaller, quieter.
(07:44):
How far is it from you? An hour an hour
and Fort Lauderdale is Fort Lauderdale's thirty minutes and Miami
is honestly also an hour a traffic but if you're
doing like a big international flight, you'd probably go from Miami.
But a lot of the domestic ones, yeah, there's certainly
a reasonable amount of service from Fort Lauderdale. Well, because
I'm an in Philadelphia and there's major international airport here
is an American hub, that kind of means by default,
(08:06):
like I'm flying on American unless there's a really good
reason not to, which is that American doesn't fly wherever
it is direct, in which case, rather than transfer, I
drive to Newark because Newark is an hour and fifteen
minutes away.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
So kind of just a little bit more than your
Miami deal, and that is a United hub, so then
I am always on United if I am going there,
I tend not to be on.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Any other airline other than that.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
I'm sure, I'm sure the other airlines are great, they're
just not here, so I don't fly.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's actually a good hack though, to drive and fly direct.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yes, yes, oh, to drive it, yeah, I mean, because
the odds of something going wrong are just so much
bigger if you're transferring somewhere and you can get stuck
in an airport that is not anywhere that you want
to be, right Like, I mean, if you're flying directory,
either are at your house, which is fine, you just
go home, or if you're at your destination, presumably you
(09:03):
either knew someone there or there was something you were
doing there, like you have some connection there, so like
you can go back.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
To that whatever that was.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Whereas if you're stuck in O'Hare, you're just like at
the stupid hotel that's near O'Hara that I've been at
more nights than I care to be.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Anyway, we digress, all right, next next on me.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
All right, you got bonus life acts there, so this
is occasionally I get some pushback on this, but just
wash everything together on cold because most things don't bleed. Now,
if you have a kid who bought some like cheap item,
that's fusia and like, you know, you suspect that it's
going to bleed, like, maybe do that separately. But if
(09:46):
it's something that's been worn and washed more than once,
if you wash everything together uncold, it will probably be fine.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I've never had a problem with it.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
The other hack related to that is if each person
has an individual load, then there is no sorting. So
I'm not saying you should always do this because sometimes
you know, you just need to throw a lot of
people's different stuff in there, But particularly if your house
doesn't have a ton of people, it might work to
(10:15):
instead of doing four mixed loads in the course of
the week, do four loads of each one person stuff
and then nobody has to sort anything and.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
You're all happier. Yeah, that's actually I should think about that.
I hate the sorting, and we absolutely do a mixed
load almost every single day, So maybe you need to
think about some kind of a rotation.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yes, a rotation, because it's just the same, like to
do every three days or every four days, like the
person has the same number of clean clothes.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's just you know, it's only that you can't then
like count on like every single day, having every single
option available to you. But like probably you can get
your house lot.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah all right, Sarah, you do another before we take
a break. Sure, Okay, when you are running low on
something you use regularly, replace it with at least two.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So I think this is an over buyer underbuyer thing
where like why but I like, we were running low
on running gels because, as I mentioned, the marathon and
my husband's also training, so we got a lot of
gels being consumed and I was like, yeah, we're getting
it on subscribe and say, but let me just build
up a giant buffer. I'm gonna buy like two extra boxes,
because like why buy one when you know you're gonna
(11:24):
use it anyway. I guess this would also not be
the best hack if you live in a tiny New
York apartment, but I definitely don't, so yeah, replace it
if it's like something you're gonna use, like get that
build that backstock.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
Yeah, I've done this with I mean, realizing things like
you're going to use a lot of sunscreen in the summer,
so just buy extras and put them anywhere you might
use them. Or hand sanitizer, for instance, which we use
a lot of in the winter. You know, you just
put it by a lot of them, put them anywhere
you might use, and the extras will nudge you to
actually use them. I was just gonna say one related
(11:59):
to that about over buying though. If you have an
item that you are seeing that you truly love and
it is the sort of thing that might wear out,
like a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes, a
particular running pant or something like that, and you see
you really love it, like, go ahead and buy more
(12:19):
of it, right because at some point they're going to
stop making it and you are going to be very
very sad. But that said, here's the real hack part.
If you can't find it because they've stopped making it,
go on eBay or Poshmark, because often people are selling
stuff there they use the NWT as new with tags,
Like I don't want to buy new like us stuff necessarily,
(12:41):
but like they're reselling it new with tags, and so
then you can find stuff that is no longer being manufactured,
and I would.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Say if you find it, you should buy two buy two.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
All right, Well, with that thought, we're going to take
a quick ad break and we will be right back
with a few more life hacks.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
All right, well, we are back.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Talking all things life hacks. So here is one related
to this season, this time of year we are coming
into the holidays, which is that you can buy nice
gift tags for your immediate family and then save and
reuse them year to year. So if you have a
place in your house where you store Christmas decorations or
something like that, you can just if you have nice
(13:34):
gift tags, not you know, like a little sticker that's
gonna get ripped off with the paper, but you know,
something more substantial. You are going to be giving gifts
to the same members of your immediate family every single year.
So something that says from Mommy and Daddy to Alex
has a shelf life of decades if it doesn't fall apart.
(13:55):
So we save a box of these, and then I
don't have to buy new ones, or I don't at
least have to buy as many new ones each year,
and it's just a nice little upgrade. There are also
other things with gifts you can reuse. I save gift
bags from kid parties. So if my kids are having
a birthday party and their friends give them a gift
in a gift bag, usually people don't write on the
(14:17):
bag itself, like they don't put the kid's name on
the bag itself.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
That's either in a card in there or they attach
a tag to the bag.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So yeah, just reuse it because it's only been used
once or unless they've been reusing it too, which is fine.
Like the more use you can get out of it,
the better, and then you always have something that you
can wrap an odd shaped object in for the future.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I love it. Plus the reuse gift tags, like there
could be a nostalgia factor too. It's not even just
that it's like nice to already have it, but like,
oh the Christmas gift tags, like I've seen those before. Yep, yep,
all right, Sarah, here's all right, Okay. This is one
where I'm like, I think probably most people have tried
this or do this. But then again, I often go
(14:56):
to Starbucks and I go and I pick up my
pre ordered mobile thing, and I see people standing there
annoyed waiting for their drinks. So maybe everyone doesn't know this,
but and I'm not knocking, like you know, the experience
of going to Starbucks and ordering and sitting down. Sometimes
that's what you want. But if you just want to
procure your Starbucks, ordering ahead on the mobile app is
like the best thing ever. And I actually think it's
(15:17):
faster if you go in the store versus drive through.
So I'm very grateful and happy that we have a
Starbucks on campus at our hospital. So if I want
to get it, like in the morning, right before I
start seeing patients, I know I can order it when
I'm at the kids' school, knowing that I'm about like
fifteen minutes from work, and then when I get there,
I can pick it up and it's all hot and ready.
It has my name on it. And yeah, you also
(15:38):
get like deals through the app. So if you frequent
Starbucks and you haven't done it this way, give it
a try. You may love it. You can still sit
there if you want to. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Well, and you I mean just sort of piggybacking on
that additional hack you have about using apps in general,
Why don't you mention that.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, a lot of times, you know, you can always
go to American Airlines and book on the website, but
sometimes these companies have apps that make things even easier.
Like examples would be Starbucks or the Marriott app. The
Bonvoy app is like super super easy, and I'm sure
all other hotel chains, et cetera. So if there's a
kind of brand or empire that you frequent that has
an app, try it because a lot of times that
(16:15):
process can be more streamlined than trying to just go
online and do it at their native website.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So Starbucks is a great example of that exactly. So
here's one for people who get cold. This is a
handful of hacks for people who get.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Cold a lot.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Turn on the seat warmer in your car. Now, again,
this may be something that like ninety nine percent of
people knew about, but I didn't know about this in
my car until about like seven years into owning my car, Like,
what's this little toggle thing on the side, And it
turns out that it warms your seat And that is
just like so nice if I am driving people around
(16:49):
in the cold and all of a sudden, I am
feeling nice and toasty. Two other things with that, if
you are a person who is often cold getting out
of the shower, use two towels. You put one on
your hair, one on your body, and that way you
are not having to unwrap.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Your body to dry your hair.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
You know it, just like everything can stay warm and
wrapped up and covered and you are not cold. You
should also purchase hot hands in bulk for your pockets.
Just put them by the door. If you are going
outside for any length of time in the winter, you
can just stick these little things in your coat pockets.
Because people who are cold, it doesn't matter like how
(17:34):
thick of an item you are wearing. Like you could
have the best coat in the world, you have the
best boots, best socks, best mints, it's not gonna help
because you personally are not creating enough warmth. And so
all those things are premised on the idea that they
are trapping warmth that then keeps you warm. But if
you are not producing that warmth that you know is
enough to make you feel warm, then you need an
(17:55):
additional source. And this is where like the seat warmer
in the car or the hot hands in your pocket
comes in.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It can makes the experience much more pleasant. I love
those hot hands on ski trips m hmm.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Essential, although I don't think you can check them, I
mean pack them with you, like in your carry on or.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Something you Yes, you are correct, and it actually like
depends on the airport. Okay, but you can check them.
I believe you just can't carry them on or it's
the opposite. I don't know, look it up. We had
to make the sub last time, but we did successfully
bring you right, okay, either in our carry on or
check following the rules to Montana. I just don't remember
which it was.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
Yeah, but I'm any ski store at the lodge will
sell them too. I mean it's not like yeah, yeah,
so you can buy them there if you needed to.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
All Right, So what's your next one? All Right, I'm
going to go with text expansion, which I don't think
you like.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
So I don't just like it, just it's not as
big a part of my life as yours.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So maybe you can explain. So I use this into context.
Number one. At work, it's huge, So we use EPIC,
which is the most common electronic health record, and if
you're on it, you probably do this, But if you're
on something else, and maybe it's not as obvious. There
should be some way of creating little shortcuts to type,
like one word and then it turns into a whole
(19:06):
giant template. Or multiple paragraphs of texts, and I have
accumulated so many of these phrases over the course of
my time being at work that really almost anything I'm
gonna explain to a patient, I can just type like
dot shoot thyroid and it has my whole thing, and
then I can edit it and customize it for whatever
patient that is. So that has definitely kind of like
bled into my rest of my life. And I found
(19:27):
out through Mac You just it's actually through the keyboard menu,
and it's shockingly easy to do. But I even have
like some of the some of the courses I do.
There's certain emails that get sent out, but I want
to be able to customize them, so I don't want
it sent automatically. But I I can type like just
like welcome BLP, and I'll have that'll generate like a
whole multiple paragraph thing that I can then customize and
(19:49):
change and whatever. So I have multiple of these, and
they definitely save me a ton of time. I mean,
the other thing I could do is like go and
find it old email and copy and paste, but this
is so much quicker. I've also to do it for
like my administrative job, like we'd have a million residency
applicants anytime they're kind of sort of saying the same
thing again to people, but it's not totally automated. This
is like a game changer game two arm.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
Okay, yeah, all right, well I bet that does save
a ton of time if you have to type the
same thing over and over again.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
Not typing the same thing over and over again sounds
like it, And I agree with you that, like I
don't need like TMO to be like tomorrow. Like that's
not going to help. It's more like, oh, I can
type one word and I have like six paragraphs. Yes, yes,
that's a real, real benefit for sure. Cool.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So here's one that's also a holiday related again because
this episode is airing in December, but if you are
in a Christmas mood at some point other than December,
which I had a child who was excited about it
even in July, one thing you can do is get
old December editions of magazines from the library, right because
(20:50):
your library has subscriptions and probably dating back many years
to a number of consumer magazines. And so if you
are thinking to your I would love a December Better
Homes and Garden right now, you can go to your
library and get it. You can actually do a lot
of magazines and such on the Libby app too, So
if you find yourself hankering for Christmas content in August,
(21:14):
you can just look it up, get some holiday magazines,
and right.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
There you are in the mood. I wonder if I
could look up like nineteen nineties editions of sase. Oh,
I'm sure you can. Oh yeah, it would be really fun. Well,
I no, here's the thing.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
I don't know that all of those would be digitized
on a library collection. I mean you might have to
go to a different library somebody would, like in the
state of Florida. I'm sure there's somebody who has digitized
someone is archive sass.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Yes, but you might need to be a little bit
more strategic about finding something like that. Yeah, yeah, love
it all right. Here's a like very like I don't
know basic, but I didn't figure it out for a while,
so I'm thrown in there, which is that if I
have a kid that has a sports that are going
a little bit late when we're pleating dinner for everyone,
just plate that kids dinner too and have it already
(22:01):
set as a plate to be heated, versus having to
like go back in and get it out and get
the serving spoon again, and blah blah blah. It's way
way faster. I guess. Like the only caveat is if
the kid comes home and is like I don't want that,
which does sometimes happen, then okay, but then you can
always put it back and then you still would have
had to have gotten out the thing. So I feel
like most of the time you win. But what if
things are different temperatures on the plate, then I would
(22:22):
just do the heated part and then I would take
the salad or whatever, like the whole part is gotcha,
all right?
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Yeah, pre prepping plates is good in general. I always
do that for at least the two younger boys, like
everyone else, can kind of make their own plates, and
I trust they won't completely avoid like all fruits and vegetables.
But Henry needs stuff set out for him and Alex
has his own personal taste, which you know, I at
(22:47):
least try to deal with. But what that means is
I'm individually plating their stuff.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
So yeah, big fan of that. All right. Here's something.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
If you need to remember anything in your life, you
should set an alarm like on your phone, Like if
something you're like, I'm gonna need to pick somebody up
at this time, And of course the alarm.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Isn't specific, like it's just gonna ding.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But what's gonna happen is you're gonna remember, like, oh,
I need to do something, and then you will go
back and figure out what it is you need to do,
or hopefully you have good notes somewhere, but it will
jolt you out of what you are doing. You can
also write things on your hand. I did this in
school a lot, like if I, you know, was a
when I was younger, like writing something I absolutely had
(23:30):
to remember on my hand. But I mean, you do
look at your hand, right, And so I have done
this with a kid in sort.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Of like a low key.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Manner, like if they need to remember to go home
in the car line instead of the bus, just encouraging
them to write a CE on their hand like nobody
else knows what it is. So people aren't looking and
pointing like why are you writing all over your hand?
It's just, you know, a little thing, but it nudges
them to remember, all right, I have like.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
A deep one. And then we'll take a break to
embrace repetition when it works and this is a fine balance.
Laura has talked about how if you repeat things too
often and lead the monotonous life, it can go too
fast and then you like blink and you miss it.
And I get that, and at the same time, there
are certain things where like if you know something works,
to just like stick with it and make your life easier.
(24:14):
So I have a few examples of this where I
don't feel it causes the issue, Laura says, but instead
brings me joy because it's like, these are things I'm
repeating because I love them. Number One signature dish. Just
have something you always make for me, It's key lime pie.
If I'm asked to bring something, if I have time
to make it, I'm making a key line pie. Or
like wearing scrubs to work and making that executive decision
that I just wear fig scrubs and a Figs jacket
(24:37):
to work and have a color rotation and I don't
have to think. And then this is maybe a controversial one,
but I'm really and We've talked about this, but I'm
super into like repeating vacation destinations. If I find a
place I absolutely love like, I'll keep going there. That's good.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
All right, We're going to take a quick ad break
and then Sarah will end us off with just one
or two quick more and then we'll go into our question.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
All right. Well we are back.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Sarah and I are in the same closet together in
my office recording here.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
So we've been talking life hacks.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Sarah, why don't you just do your last two.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
To end with that and then we'll go into our
question section. All right. My second to last was to
set the next date. This applies to basically everything doctor's appointments,
book club, check ins with your teacher, a date with
a friend, but really anything that you do that you
want to do again, you might as well at least
set a tentative next date. If it needs to move,
it needs to move, that's fine, But if it's something
(25:43):
you intend to repeat, it's just so much easier to
already have it on the calendar and then you can
always modify if needed. So highly recommend that. And then finally,
this is a hack that I haven't done. I think
one of our Patreon members mentioned this and I was like, yes, yes, yes,
consider putting socks by the door. If this tends to
be the rate limiting step in getting out the door
(26:05):
in the morning. This is absolutely our rate limiting step
for sometimes all three children and they have to wear
socks to school. They're not allowed to just wear crocs
or sandals, even though climate wise they could. Often my
kids end up wearing their socks in their hand and
they're going in bare feet on a gravel drive. But like,
it is such a problem, and I could put the
socks by the door and I will. Yes, all right,
(26:28):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Just one more quick one for me, which is that
if you don't want your beverage to order the water
down in a restaurant, you can always ask for light ice,
and in your own home you can make ice cubes
out of other things in order to keep a beverage
from being watered down. So some people do you know
ice coffee, though, will freeze coffee in an ice tray
(26:52):
because then you can use that. I've seen people use
grapes like frozen grapes in wine or something like that.
But of course you can also buy plastic ice cubes
that will not melt if you don't want water and
whatever it.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is, frozen grapes and wine.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
I love that, yeah, all right, So moving on to
our question, Sarah, do you have that?
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yes, it is. How do you find planning activities to
be different or teens? I've noticed there isn't as much
urgency because they aren't toddlers bouncing off the walls, and
a lot of things plan themselves because it's a sports schedule,
et cetera, and we all have to follow it. However,
for that downtime between sports seasons or activity seasons, what
can you plan as a family? What might you suggest? Yeah,
(27:40):
tough question.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Well, on some level, I think teens don't necessarily always
want you planning things for them because they will have
things they want to do with their friends, and friend
plans tend to happen last minute. So you know, if
you've planned a family afternoon at whatever, attract the odds
that one of your teens is like, but Jodie's having
(28:04):
a get together over there, and I want to go
to it, Like and you know, are you going to
have a knockdown, drag out fight that you want them
to go to the aquarium with you? Like they're not
going to go to the aquarium with you? Like this
is just you know, that ship is sailed by the
time they are mostly adult people. I think concentrating on
a few sort of bigger, high quality things you can
(28:26):
do as a family, and that ideally are things that
they truly want to do as well. So it might
be going to a concert, it might be going to
a sports event.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That they are very excited about, a.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Weekend trip somewhere, and just putting a couple of those
in a year can help you feel like you still
have family activities, even if it's not like every Saturday,
you guys are going to the pumpkin patch together or
anything along those lines anymore, and then really just being
attuned to what they enjoy doing as quick activities. Two
of my kids wind up going to Old Navy shopping
(29:01):
that they tend to like their clothes, and they're relatively cheap,
so I don't mind it as a destination to go
pick up random things. And obviously Starbucks is eternal. You're
going to Starbucks multiple times per week, I believe at
this point.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
And I don't how teens, but I have an almost teen,
and I feel like the tween years are sort of similar.
But I feel like, don't even discount stuff like going
out to dinner, like, yes, they may be hanging with
their friend or working on a school project or something.
But if they're coming home and then the family's going
out somewhere, then that still counts as time, even though
it wasn't you know, the same kind of outing you
might have had when they were toddler's bouncing off the walls,
(29:37):
and that's okay. This might be a time that they're
doing some social stuff, you get to do some of
your own stuff, and you're still getting it together at
the end. I think family vacations to me are super
important to me for this reason because it's like maybe
the last vestiges of some protected time, and if you're
going somewhere that they love, then they're excited to do that.
And then you had also mentioned the idea of sometimes
bringing a friend in.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, yeah, you know, if you're taking you're thinking, like
take a kid to a movie, like it's not that
hard to get an extra ticket, and then have the
kids invite somebody. You know, that's an option for them
to do, and they'll probably be a lot more excited
about it if they're bringing a friend. I would also say,
like as kids get older, sometimes they're gone with dinner stuff,
if they have late activities or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
But if they are home.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
They become much more pleasant dinner companions when they're not
throwing food on the floor anymore or you know, running
up after one minute because they've decided they're done with
dinner at this point. So I found that, you know,
we're actually sitting around the table a little bit more,
my teenagers and I and like a weekday or something
and just.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Chatting and it's kind of nice.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
So yeah, I again, it's not like going apple picking
necessarily or the adventurers who would have planned when they
were little, but it's still quality time and just being
open and available to that and noticing when it.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Happens can go a long way. It still counts, It
still counts. It all still counts.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
So I guess love of the week, I mean, I
don't know, do our life hacks kind of count as that.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
I don't know. I'll use the Starbucks mobile apps Starbucks
mobile app as your love of the week. Well, I
love that too.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
I definitely enjoy having that whenever it is, But I
like recording in person as well. It's so nice to
be able to do this occasionally. So my love of
the week is the fact that Sarah's extended family lives
pretty close to.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Me, because yeah, it's very convenient. It's very convenient.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
We may both be running the Thanksgiving five k at
the local y. Right, you're running that or you're not
going to run it.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
I'm running that unless it's pouring rain. That's true, that's
part right. I may not dine out what happened? Did
we run it? Did we not? What was Sarah's time?
How many minutes behind her was Laura? Let's not ask
that question? All right?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Well, this has been best of both worlds. We've been
talking life hacks this week. We will be back next
week with more on making work in life fit together.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
This has the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Please join us next time for more on making work
and life work together.
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