September 2, 2025 • 36 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah share their favorite lists to make and to keep! Examples include a 100 Dreams Lists, a Someday Maybe list, Seasonal Fun Lists, various Gift Lists, and more.
In the Q&A, a listener writes in wondering how to encourage a reluctant child to attend overnight camp.
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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 early September of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
I know some people are going back to school today.
If so, we hope everything is going well for you
and your household. Others have been back for many weeks already,
and hopefully you are settling into your routines. But as
you are doing so of organizing life is often making lists,
and so today's episode is a celebration of lists. We
(01:08):
are talking all things lists, from the obvious lists to
the more obscure lists. I'm going to be lisping by
the end of this episode. I can tell for sure.
It was hard to talk about a list of lists.
But We're going to try, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, we are going to try with all those essays.
It's good that I have my ENDVISI line out of
my mouth right now.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's true. Essays are hard to say with any sort
of orthodontic gear involved. So we get episode ideas from
different places, and a couple weeks ago, I had written
a substack newsletter about lists you might not be making
but might want to, and I got a lot of
great feedback on that one, and so we decided to
(01:50):
delve a little deeper into the idea of lists. We
talk with our Patreon community about lists they make. We
talk about some lists that we make, So we're just
going to go through some of them and talk about
how they work for us and how they have sometimes
not worked for us, and go from there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think mostly they work, or even if they don't
work any obvious ways, sometimes they can work in subtle ways.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yes, that's true. Well, I think time spent organizing life
in general is seldom wasted. I know perhaps some of
us maybe spend a little bit more time on that
than we should do so sometimes, but I think most
people spend less time on it than they probably should.
I think you'd agree with that one hundred percent agree
with that. Yeah, all right, Well, let's start with one
(02:32):
huge list, a bucket list of starts the list of
one hundred dreams. So this is an unedited list of
anything you might want to spend more time doing in
your life. You can certainly just treat it as a
general bucket list. The issue with a bucket list is
many people start and then sort of abandon it after
item number twenty, as they've listed the twenty countries they
(02:53):
want to visit. The thing about getting all the way
to a one hundred is it requires you to keep
thinking about it, coming back to it, and after you
have exhausted again the twenty countries you want to visit,
you have to come up with slightly more doable dreams,
which can be a good thing as we start to
get into items that might be more possible to pull
off in the next few weeks. So, Sarah, you've made
(03:14):
this list, right.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I have made this list, and the last time I
reviewed it was actually or like renewed. It was at
our best laid plans live last year. So I actually
got out my workbook where I had done my notes,
and it was like handily sitting there. So I definitely
recommend if you do this exercise, putting it somewhere that
you know you will find. I actually found that a
very risky place to put it. And really, if I'm
(03:37):
thinking about I should probably take pictures of that and
just stick it into Apple notes or somewhere a little
bit more evergreen. But yeah, I love this exercise.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I think I'm going to do a full on
refresh of it this November when we meet up for
Best Laid Plans Live, partly because I've been looking at
once I made. I made one in like twenty fifteen.
I think I made one in twenty ten, one in
twenty eighteen, and some of this stuff feels, I don't know,
a little stale to me now. I don't know if
I've reworked some dreams, some I've done, some just aren't
(04:05):
as appealing to me anymore. And so I think it
is something that you do want to update every now
and again. But are there things on your list of
one hundred dreams that you've done in the last year
or so?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Sarah, Yeah, I had to actually go back and look
and the things on there that I have accomplished within
the past twelve months are that I got a book published.
I mean it's not like out yet, but it's coming
out in December.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It's coming in. The rock is rolling down the hill
at this point. It would take a lot for it
to stop at this point. Yes, So that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And that was always fairly high up on my one
hundred dreams list for a long time. So that's really fun.
I had on there to see Taylor Swift, which I
accomplished in October of twenty twenty four. It was great fun.
I had qualify for the Boston Marathon on there. Interestingly,
I didn't have run the Boston Marathon on there, which
was presient because I did qualify based on their sort
of time cut offs to apply. I didn't actually make
(04:58):
the time cutoffs to race, and no, I can't run anymore.
So I'm just considered this as done as done. But
I did officially. You know, most people use the definition
of qualify as meeting their qual time, so I did
that twice. I will consider that done. And then also
one that hasn't happened yet, but I was happy to
see it on the list because it's going to come
to fruition. Is that I wanted to go back to Hawaii,
and we are planning that for next summer.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And planning as in, you've already booked. I booked like
hotel and so yeah, okay, so not just like a
wild dream like ooh, we might do Hawaii next summer.
There's dates on the calendar, there is a hotel reservation.
It is correct. Again, rock rolling down the hill at
this point, Yes, what about you? Yeah, well, I was
looking back over my list, singing the bax b minor
Mass that had been on the list for ages. I
(05:42):
had wanted to hear concerts of it too, and I've
done that as well with some other groups that have
performed it. It was more easy to hear other people
perform it than to find a local choir that was
doing it. But finally made that happen on New Year's
Eve twenty twenty four, so that is done. I also
wanted to go to Portugal. I think I thought of
it as more of a leisure and i'd see like
the Azores or however you say that too. But I
(06:04):
went for work and Portugal is still beautiful. I spoke
at a retreat on the coast in Portugal, and so
I was still enjoying the beautiful Portuguese coast, even if
it wasn't really a relaxing trip in that sense that.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Sounds like a retreat I would want to go on
next time. I'll have to be an in the audience. Yeah,
I know, it's drag you along exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It was good. Yeah, it's funny. I actually had the
Taylor Swift I mentioned I wanted to go to concerts
with my kids, and I, you know, had in a
This was like in twenty eighteen. I guess there's something
when I made it and I said, some friends took
their daughters to see Taylor Swift and said it was
really fun. And of course now I've done gone to
see Taylor as well. That wasn't in the last year.
I guess it was a little outside the last year,
(06:47):
but it was good. So more things hopefully to come.
I have one thing on there that will likely happen
over Christmas, but I'm a little I get funny about
talking about things before they actually superstitious. After Christmas. Yeah, yeah,
we will revisit that topic. Another list you might want
to make is a someday maybe list, or you might
(07:09):
call it a project list. So this is loosely based
on David Allen's idea. The productivity writer David Allen talks
about a someday maybe list, which solves the problem of
things you would like to do or a need to
do so not fun list of one hundred dreams type things,
but they are not urgent or particularly important in the
(07:32):
next week or so, let's say. And what often happens
is people make these very very long to do lists
that are totally useless because they have all the items
that should go on a Someday maybe list. And so
in the middle of your list that says send invoices
on the Jones projects, set up meeting with Rebecca, and
(07:53):
organize garage, Like why is that there? That's not happening today, right,
But yeah, you still want to do it at some point,
so it goes on these someday maybe or project lists,
whatever you want to call it. You have this going
as well, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes, I use mine a little bit more speculatively, like
we'll talk about it later, because I use nested goals list.
If I think something might happen in the year, it's
probably on my annual list, not my Sunday maybe. I
use someday maybe for like, I really don't have a
timeframe for this, and a lot of it's just like, oh,
this is a cool idea that would be fun, and
sometimes I've ended up doing stuff on there. I think
actually launching my courses was like a someday maybe idea
(08:28):
at one point. So some of these can really bubble
up and become big, and then others are going to
sit there until I die and it's totally fine. Like
I have this medical memoir that I'm probably never going
to write, but I want it in there with the
ideas that I came up with because I don't want
to lose those ideas. But it doesn't belong on any
of my other like sort of real time lists, because
I have no concrete plans to put this into fruition.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, mine tends to be more of things that I
know I do need to do or would very much
like to do, not fun things, but are are there.
And so it would be like get new running shoes now,
I do not actually need to do that this week.
I could do it at any point in the next
few months. Most likely I'm not exactly running so much
(09:09):
that it matters, but I don't want to forget that
I have to do it. And so where this list
winds up being helpful is I have it running, and
sometimes I get a little bit more gung ho about
doing stuff on it, like, Okay, I actually need to
make sure that Henry has shorts that fit, or that
I need to go through the kid's books and see
(09:31):
if some need to be moved to a different bookshelf
because they've changed reader levels of who is looking at
those books, or we need to paint this room. And
it doesn't have to happen now, but I don't want
to forget it. And then if I'm feeling excited, I
will go on there and pull something off. And sometimes
it's fun if you have a little extra time on
(09:51):
a Friday to order new shoes.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Totally, I think seasonally is a nice cadence to browse
your Sunday maybe list and you can either decide to
put on that season's list if you make one, or
you can be like, you know, what, next week looks
really empty, let me just put this on a day, like,
let me just schedule it, let me whatever you just said,
clean out the shorts or whatever, let me just put
it on Wednesday, because hey, I have an open day
or something like that. So I don't think you need
(10:15):
to look at your Sunday maybe every day. That would
be overkill, but having some kind of cadence is a
good idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Absolutely. One more that we're going to do before our
ad break is the idea of an travel specific list,
so a more time bound travel list. So now, obviously
on your list of one hundred dreams, you might have
all the places you want to visit in your bucket list,
but travel is the sort of thing you can start
(10:42):
to plan more specifically over for sure the next twelve months,
but you can start thinking over the next I don't
know three years or so of where you'd like to
slot things, particularly if you have school age kids and
are really only traveling over Christmas break, spring break, summer. Right,
so you could just set up for the next three
ye where are you going in each of these slots
(11:03):
and obviously not all of them, but it helps with
thinking about like, Okay, is this the year we're aiming
for this country, or is this year we're doing something
a little bit more local because we're saving money for
two years doing this big trip and it might then
change depending on ages of kids, how many will be
home that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, definitely good to put your kids ages on there
and any family milestone. I kind of like five years,
And I do not see this as like an actual
concrete plan. I agree that really only the kind of
next twelve months and then maybe a few special trips
beyond that. Like you do have to book certain things
very far in advance, but most things twelve months is
a enughly way I see them as ideas, like, you know,
(11:42):
maybe I have Japan in there for twenty twenty seven,
but then I decide, you know what, actually we have
this other pressing thing, and I'll do that in twenty
twenty eight. But at least I have a place to
start from.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Plus it's super.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Fun to think about. And then a lot of times
you will go with what you have there because you
start thinking about it, and then you know, one day
you start looking at hotels and these things just become
more and more concrete until you're bookingaing them.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Absolutely. All right, Well we're going to take a quick
ad break and then we'll be back with more of
our list of lists. Well, we are back talking lists
of lists, all the lists you might want to be making.
(12:27):
The lists we make and what they do in our lives.
So another kind of list that can be fun to
make is a seasonal fun list. We do this a
sort of different versions, Sarah, your seasonal fund list are
really more of your like quintile goal lists, right, that's
where you'd put these things.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I usually I've been including a category called fun with
it like as one of my sort of domains or
categories when I make my seasonal list, And that's been
my answer to the seasonal fun list that provides enough
room for me. Maybe I have less fun than you.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I don't know, maybe have less fun. Well, I longtime
blog readers know that I make a couple of different
seasonal fun lists each year. Definitely a summer fun list,
So those are the seasonal specific things I want to
do over the course of the summer to make it
feel like I had a summer. I often do one
for the holiday season. So there's obviously many things one
(13:16):
can do to celebrate the holidays. Different shows, you can
go to, light displays, activities, sort of home based traditions,
and it helps you figure out what you really care
about and what is like, Eh, nobody really liked going
to that thing, so we don't have to put it
on the list for next year, and it makes you
feel like you didn't get to January and think I
(13:37):
didn't do this, or if it does get to January
but it turns out that they are still have the
light display up for another week, you can block it
in for the first week of January and enjoy it.
I have done a fall fun list. I have not
probably when this airs, I may not have published it yet,
or maybe I will Monday or Wednesday of this week.
But it's been fun to start thinking about me out
(14:00):
of summer and we're still when we're recording this, I
am still in summer. But it starts looking forward to
things like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be getting to
see beautiful leaves in upstate New York in mid October,
Like I'm excited about that, and I have it on
the calendar and I can look forward to it, and
I'm going to take a long bike ride somewhere in
(14:21):
the leaves and see that. So yeah, it just focuses
your fun a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And then I listened to that and this is my
rage season.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It's like that everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Else has nice weather and crisp, pretty colors, and we
have hurricanes and it's.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Gross and travel somewhere.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I actually get madder in fall than summer because summer
like everyone's hot, and in fall it's when everyone else
gets hot. But you know what, Yeah, the number one
item that sort of has found its way onto my
fall fund list is to like get out of here
for a weekend and see some fall And honestly, I
would like to include that for the rest of my days.
That should be a standing item on my fall fun list,
and I do already have it planned for this year.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Oh so, okay, I'm glad to hear that there will
be somewhere crisp boots may and be involved, maybe even
a pumpkin spice latte. One hundred percent. It's happening, happening,
It's happening. Another list, which is sort of a subset
of the list of one hundred dreams. We sort of
have this global list and then we can break it
down into smaller lists that sometimes people find a little
bit more fruitful as they are thinking of is a
(15:18):
local bucket list. So this is anything you might enjoy
doing that is within about one or maybe two hours
of your house. So think somewhere you might get on
a Saturday, if you got your act together and plan
to do it right. So you're probably not driving four
hours somewhere, you're probably not flying somewhere. But if there's
(15:40):
something that's a seventy minute drive from your house that's
within the realm of possibility of it's something you really
wanted to do, and so you make this list. And
this is a good list to involve other family members
in as well, because these are often things you are
definitely doing with family members, like on the weekend, if
you're looking for something to bring people to, what would
that be. And as you're in a place for multiple years,
(16:03):
you can start adding to the list taking away from
the list, and there's certain little kid things that we
probably just don't do as much. I'm not sure if
I will wind up at the Police Touch Museum anymore,
but it was there for a long time.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
One nice thing about a local bucket list is that
you can use it as a reference by looking at
last year's list when you're planning this falls list or
this season's list. But remember that you don't have to
do everything. Just because you did it last year doesn't
mean you need to do it again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Absolutely, we are not in the holiday season yet, but
we were getting there eventually. Which a lot of people
make gift lists right like of what you would buy
other people, But it might actually be helpful to make
a list of things other people could buy you because
you will probably be asked. And this is a good
(16:52):
place to park something that you were thinking about getting
but maybe aren't one hundred percent sure, like if you
want to spend the money on it. And so it's
actually helpful to be the sort of person that others
can shop for if you are in a family or
friend group that believes in buying gifts for each other,
to not be the person that stumps everyone. So if
(17:13):
you think of something, put it on a list like this.
Do you ever do this, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
For myself, I do not for a gift. I'm more
like things I might want to buy in the future.
Sometimes I'll like throw that onto my notes app just
because I find that sometimes the alert phades with time,
and then I can save myself an impulse buy and
I guess it will say that also in addition to
I love this idea because this is different than the
traditional giftless idea. But on the note of the traditional
(17:37):
giftless if you do think of an idea for someone.
For some reason, I'm very good at writing things down,
except for this. I'm like, oh, I won't forget that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That is so.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Obvious, and I always forget it. So I've become much
better about capturing these, and then I'm always so glad
I have them.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, And a quick note on capturing something, you can
always email yourself. If you are the sort of person
who does process your primary to current at least on occasion,
then if you email yourself, you will in fact see
it and hopefully at a time when you can act
on it, putting it on a different list like a
collection you have in your planner of gift ideas, or
(18:13):
a future note that is tied to December ten in
your calendar, or whatever it happens to be. Grocery shopping list.
I thought this was sort of self evident, but I
am married to someone who does a reasonable amount of
the grocery shopping in our family, and he does not
tend to shop from a list, which is one of
(18:33):
the reasons we have ten bags of tortilla chips in
our pantry, because you know you might run out of
tortilla chips. Oh well, we eat tortilla chips. Let's buy
tortilla chips again. But there are worse things that could happen, as.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Gonna say, at least that's a fairly non perishable item.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So yes, exactly exactly what I think. We have like
three tubs of sour cream and our that's more. That's all.
We weren't out it. Then you're like, God, I make
fatas and you don't have sour cream, and then people
are upset. But you know that won't happen in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Apparently, I always, always I can't like imagine going. I
mean I would stop and get a few things, but
that's not usually how my lifestyle works. It's usually like
I'm getting the week's worth of things, and I always
have to have a list.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well he's getting I think what would be a week's
worth of things. It's just it's the things we always get, right,
and there might be like one dinner that we've thought
about that would be different, and so then that would
just be in the mental space, I guess. But when
we do costco shopping trips, I have now created a
do not buy list, just because again you wind up
(19:37):
with it's one thing if you've got ten bags of
tortilla chips that are normal sized, but if you have
let's say, twelve giant containers of ketchup, you really don't
need to buy anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Probably not, Probably not, So do not buy list?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
That is a new one. Do not buy list.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I know, as long as the person shopping refers.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
To it, refers to it well. And there's also one
can make the decision that it's a good enough thing
that somebody else is doing the grocery shopping that your
idea on how to do it better may not be
entirely welcome in this case. So a favorite meals list
This is something I'm pondering creating because we tend to
do a rotation of meals during the week, but I
(20:21):
find we tend to be doing the same things on
weekends too, and I think it might be fun to
shake things up a little bit, especially if there is
that one meal, if that's getting shopped for, to change
up what that specifically is, or if I go to
the grocery store at some point getting things like that.
Do you have a favorite meals list?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I don't, but I am very attracted to the idea of, like,
especially doing this by season, because then you can also
just make sure you're incorporating like oh, everybody loves to
do barbecuing the summer, or make this stew when it
gets fall or something like that. So no, we don't
tend to do it. I mean, I feel like I
have a lot of the favorites in my head. So
this is one where I have not actually gone through
making a list. But I guess one other beautiful thing
(21:01):
about making a list here is that if you keep
it somewhere, that would be a fun thing to look
back on, like a decade from now, like, oh, look
at my kids love to eat. I don't know that's mental.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They still aren't eating anything. Oh boy, Friday punch list.
So this is what I call the little tasks that
kind of stack up during the week and they do
need to get done, but they are not urgent, and
so it's different from a someday maybe list in that
they really do actually have to happen pretty soon, and
so you want to find a spot on your calendar
(21:31):
of this week to do them, but they're not your
top priority, so you don't want to give them your
best time. You don't want to give them time that
you've carved out for doing deeper work. If you're thinking
about something you don't want to be stopping in the
middle of it to go fill out a permission slip
or book a hotel, or to answer a non urgent
(21:53):
email and set up an appointment somewhere. So I keep
a running list of those and then go through them
on Friday. I call it a punch list because if
you've ever had a contractor do a major renovation project,
at the end they start with making what they call
a punch list. It's just all these little things that
they still need to get to at the end before
they close it out. And so that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
For me.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My Friday punch list.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
MIN intend to just kind of accumulate all my weekly planners.
But I feel like my nested goals is like my
answer to a lot of these, just arranged a little
bit differently. And I don't have a specific day, although
Wednesday has become a big administrative day, so maybe I
do have a Wednesday punch list and I don't even
realize it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, well, because I mean those aren't necessarily goals per se,
they're just you know, tasks that have accumulated during the week. Right, like, yeah,
and if you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Do inbox processing and part of that is sort of
getting done the quick little things that you left there
until clear out time, that can kind of comprise an
electronic punch list of sorts.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, all right, Well we're going to take one more
quick ad break and then we will be back with
a little bit more on our lists of lists. So
our next list of things you might want to have
(23:08):
is thinking about all sorts of media consumption. Lots of
people have a to be read list of books you
might want to read sometime soon, but you could also
have a to be watched TBW as it were a
TBL maybe to be listened to. I honestly, I'm not
really doing many of these at the moment. I have
a TBL through virtue of my year long Beethoven project.
(23:31):
I'm following the complete Beethoven calendar, and so that is
my TBL list. Each day, I have a listing that
goes with that. But you know, I haven't been organizing
books very well, Sari, You've been doing this a little
bit more, especially over summer. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Over summer, I usually look at the Modern Missus Darcy
Summer Reading Guide and just pick a whole slew of
things off of that because it hasn't steered me wrong
yet and the summer was no exception. And then what
tends to happen. I don't get like precious about it.
I just get the whole thing circle all the ones
that look good, and then randomly them from the library,
and then whatever comes in I read or I don't read.
You know, if I run out of time, I just
return it and pick something else. But that way I
(24:07):
kind of know I have a nice variety to choose from,
and it's worked really well for Fall. I'm kind of
planning on doing something similar and I just came across
a really fun list actually from Laura Tremaine's newsletter. It
was like the fall releases she's looking forward to, and
so many of them were very much up my alley.
So I may use that as sort of the Fall
(24:27):
version of what I do in the summer. So excited
for that.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And how about like watching and listening? Are you keeping
track of this?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I do track it, like, but I track it after
the fact. I don't plan it, if that makes sense,
So like I do I write my planner if I've
watched the TV show, I just like put in this
little media section, so it's fun to be able to
look back on that. But aside from just paying attention,
if I have a show that I'm super excited about,
like knowing when it's coming out, like I think Emily
in Paris season five releases in December, I know about
(24:53):
that already, and Annabelle and I were trying to figure
out the Dance Mom's New Era second season release, but
the internet does not seem to want to share that
information with us yet. So things like that I have
on my radar specific shows, but I wouldn't say I
keep a active running list, although it sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, yeah, I could, although I do have a puzzle
queue right now, like I ordered several puzzles from White Mountain,
which is a puzzle company based in the United States.
They make very nice puzzles, and I had two that
I did at the beach that I ordered for the beach,
and one was waiting for me when I came home,
So that's next in the queue. So that's kind of
(25:33):
a fun way to spend some time on. It's always
seasonal right. I tried to do a matchup of summer
and then fall and so forth with my puzzles. Another
kind of list is friends and when you've least gotten
together or talked with this person, because everyone's busy and
(25:56):
sometimes you know, a while can go before you've seen someone,
and it's not that you couldn't have if you tried.
It's just that things were busy and so it didn't
kind of happen. But if you sort of remind yourself, like, oh, yeah,
I haven't seen this person in a couple of weeks,
I should send a text that can be helpful to
nudge that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I definitely don't do this, but I think it's really
nice and it's true, like we never regret the connections
we make and keep, so I think it's a lovely idea.
I feel like I just let mine unfold a little
bit more holistically. But you're right, there's probably some relationships
that could use some more regular attention. And by the way,
the last time we saw each other was in July.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
In case you and we will see each other again
in November, So yeah, i'd say every couple of months
that it happens, although we see each other virtually, as
we record these good points. A fun list you can
make if you are ever feeling like I'm not getting anywhere,
life is terrible or whatever. Might be a done list
or a greatest hits list, so list things that you
(26:59):
have done or have accomplished. It could be sort of
a retrospective list of one hundred dreams that you could
picture someone you twenty five years ago, Let's say, making
a list of one hundred dreams, and the things you
would have done that would have been on any reasonable
list of one hundred dreams, So there could be lots
(27:21):
of stuff that would be there. You list the trips
you've taken, the sort of life goals you've met, professional accomplishments,
any hobby things that you have done, and that just
kind of makes life feel a little bit more like, oh, yeah,
it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I've started to do a little bit of that on
my blog because I've seen people do well, like k
who blogs a Grateful Kids, these monthly recaps that are
really detailed, and it is a nice way to just
catalog like, oh I did that, and sometimes when you
look back and a month seemed a little bit lackluster,
but you actually look at the objective data, like flip
through your planner and you're like, see what you checked off,
you're like, actually I am missing the forest for the trees.
(27:59):
Then a lot happened, and yes they're stressful points, but
let's celebrate these wins. So I think it's nice to
do that with a very objective eye, because we tend
to otherwise, I think, focus on like the one negative
thing sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, are there any other lists you keep.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Sarah, Yes, we have a cumulative list that's very old,
stored in Apple notes. That is my kid's funny things
they've said. Now, I highly recommend doing this because when
a kid says something ridiculous or just really insightful, like
a toddler, I don't know, just says something. I could
give you examples, but I'm not gonna pull it out
right now. But anyway, capture it right then and there
(28:35):
you'll think again, you'll think, oh, I'll remember that.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You won't.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
But if you write it down and you put the date,
then it lives forever. And that apple note, let me
tell you, like we whip that out at a restaurant
every once in a while. You can't do it up
too often then it's boring. But like if it's every
couple of years, everyone just cracks up and you have
this little collection and is precious, so highly recommend that
list absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
These are just some of our favorite lists that we
keep with thee to hear yours. Feel free to let
us know. You can always write me Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com let me know what lists you are
keeping and any that have transformed your life. I would
love to hear about that as well, because I'm always
on the hunt for the life changing list that I
haven't thought of but is going to make everything better.
(29:19):
So can't wait to learn about it. In the meantime,
Hey question tips for encouraging a potential summer camper who's
feeling a little reluctant. So somebody is thinking about sleep
away camp for their kid for next summer. Yes, it
is September, but some of the early bird deadlines for
many of these places are late September October, So if
(29:42):
you are going to sign a kid up, probably better
to do it. But if the kid is not sure,
you know, and obviously it's a long time from now,
what can you do to help them with this? Thinking?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, I feel like you should go first because mine's
a little contrarian. It's your answer?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm not saying you have to
go to summer camp either, And I got to say,
I'm a little wary of the ones that there's some
people who, you know, some camps is basically all summer long,
and I get that sometimes that's more of a cultural
thing or you know, I get it, but it does
seem like a really long time for people to be gone.
And so I'm talking more about like a week, you know,
(30:19):
or two weeks of somebody going to camp, and that
might be worth if somebody is a little reluctant but interested,
trying to get them into the idea of well, you
can always try it and it's only a week, Like
we sent one child to one that was only five
nights this summer, and you say, well, you'll be on
(30:40):
the other side of five nights very very quickly, Like
this time is not long. So at the end of
it you will know what it's like. You can decide
to do it again or not. But I think you'll
always wonder if you thought it was something that sounded
maybe cool, but you weren't sure, like at some point
you just have to take the plunge and try it.
But you know, obviously many of these camps, especially if
they are a commercial oriented camp, like they have a
(31:03):
cool camp video, right, you see lots of cool looking
kids on this giant swing or water skiing or on
quads or like playing paintball or whatever it is that
they do with this camp, and that can obviously be
very exciting if your kid is into that. If there's
somebody in your neighborhood or school who's been that could
(31:23):
be good to get the kids to talk to that.
Ruth suggested watching Bunked, although she said later seasons weren't
that good, so I don't know. Maybe I have to
choose an episode carefully. And then if going with a
friend is obviously a great way to have somebody who
might be a little reluctant to do it, give it
(31:44):
a shot, because again, if it's only five nights and
you're there with somebody that you really like, like, how
bad could it possibly be? And so that might encourage
a reluctant camper as well.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
With my kids, I don't think any other selling point
would do a thing except for the friend one. And
if they was a friend that they really liked and
wanted to spend time with, that could be like an
absolute like magic Okay, yeah I want to do it,
but yeah, I just want to be careful here, because
I think I got sucked into the idea that like
your kids had to go to camp or you were
depriving them of some magical experience and this gift of
(32:15):
like being independent. And yeah, there's some great things about camp,
but I was faced with because who didn't want to
go back to camp? And I struggled with that because
I felt like, oh my gosh, like what did I
do wrong? Or like do I push them because everyone
says like they should go? And then I just realized
I cannot force them to, Like it felt wrong, and
I believe I made the right choice into saying if
you want to go to camp, go to camp. If
(32:36):
you don't want to go to camp, you can go
to day camp. You're not sitting home all day. I
mean I'm not talking about like older teens, but like
younger kids. But you don't have to to be away
from the house as a single digit kid or even
like as a as a tween. It's not a requirement.
And so just make sure that you're encouraging is because
you think they would really have a lot of fun,
(32:58):
and not because you feel like you're doing what you're
supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah. I mean Alex went to sleep away camp for
two weeks this summer and he really had a good time.
And I think it's partly that you could do stuff
in an overnight camp that you probably wouldn't at a
lot of day camps, and so that was just a
big selling point for it, and I think he will
wind up going back. I think Ruth will wind up
(33:22):
going back to her camp as well. I mean, it
really is. It can be a lot of fun. Oh
my gosh.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
If kids love it like, they should go Like. I
think it's a wonderful thing to offer your kids. I
just don't think it's a thing to push, especially if
they've been and they're answering with a knowledgeable perspective.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, if they don't want to go back, yeah, then
that's ridiculous. Yeah. No, no, you can't. I do not
believe in pushing people for optional stuff like that at all.
Our kids are not us. It is possible that you
love summer camp but your kids do not. It's also
possible that you felt sad you didn't get to go
to summer camps and now you're like, I'm giving you
this opportunity, but your kids don't actually want the opportunity,
or they try it out side it's not for them,
(34:00):
and then that is what it is, all right. Love
of the Week, Sarah, what do you have this week?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Well? I was really piggybacking on yours, but I will
say it was very I like them when the teachert well, okay,
so we're talking about school, Laura's gonna share hers. But
I gotta love it when the teacher sent me an
exact link to what they want, and then I could
just purchase it without any like thought.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah. So when I was doing the notes for this episode,
we had just gone to Target, was at the beach
and we were kind of hit by the side of
Hurricane Eron, which was making its way up the Atlantic coast,
thus closing the beach for a couple of days. And
it was very rainy, and then it was very windy
and waves were coming up almost to the boardwalk, so
(34:43):
clearly nobody was going on the beach. She's like, well,
what do we do? We will go to Target and
go school supply shopping, since we had the lists at
that point for most of the children. And it was fine,
you know, everyone could get their own stuff from the list,
but it was fun looking at the receipt afterwards, because
I don't know if your targets are like my targets.
(35:04):
Sometimes things are not necessarily priced labeled incredibly well. So
I was just looking at I like, Okay, it's Target,
it's probably cheap, and I'm like looking at the list afterwards,
and There'll be random items from Up and Up or
some other Target brand, but it doesn't say what it is.
It just this sale item was sixty five cents now
thirty nine cents. I have no idea what did I
(35:26):
buy that was thirty nine cents? People even sell things
for thirty nine cents and race carently they do. What's
that an eraser, a plastic you know, maybe or the ruler.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I actually have no idea what it was, but sometimes
they sell like little boxes of colored pencils really cheap too.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, so well we have a thirty nine cent item
whatever that happens to be. So that could be my
love of the week. Well, this has been best of
both worlds. We have been talking lists of lists that
we like. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Can 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 early September of twenty twenty five.
(00:47):
I know some people are going back to school today.
If so, we hope everything is going well for you
and your household. Others have been back for many weeks already,
and hopefully you are settling into your routines. But as
you are doing so of organizing life is often making lists,
and so today's episode is a celebration of lists. We
(01:08):
are talking all things lists, from the obvious lists to
the more obscure lists. I'm going to be lisping by
the end of this episode. I can tell for sure.
It was hard to talk about a list of lists.
But We're going to try, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Yes, we are going to try with all those essays.
It's good that I have my ENDVISI line out of
my mouth right now.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
That's true. Essays are hard to say with any sort
of orthodontic gear involved. So we get episode ideas from
different places, and a couple weeks ago, I had written
a substack newsletter about lists you might not be making
but might want to, and I got a lot of
great feedback on that one, and so we decided to
(01:50):
delve a little deeper into the idea of lists. We
talk with our Patreon community about lists they make. We
talk about some lists that we make, So we're just
going to go through some of them and talk about
how they work for us and how they have sometimes
not worked for us, and go from there. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I think mostly they work, or even if they don't
work any obvious ways, sometimes they can work in subtle ways.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yes, that's true. Well, I think time spent organizing life
in general is seldom wasted. I know perhaps some of
us maybe spend a little bit more time on that
than we should do so sometimes, but I think most
people spend less time on it than they probably should.
I think you'd agree with that one hundred percent agree
with that. Yeah, all right, Well, let's start with one
(02:32):
huge list, a bucket list of starts the list of
one hundred dreams. So this is an unedited list of
anything you might want to spend more time doing in
your life. You can certainly just treat it as a
general bucket list. The issue with a bucket list is
many people start and then sort of abandon it after
item number twenty, as they've listed the twenty countries they
(02:53):
want to visit. The thing about getting all the way
to a one hundred is it requires you to keep
thinking about it, coming back to it, and after you
have exhausted again the twenty countries you want to visit,
you have to come up with slightly more doable dreams,
which can be a good thing as we start to
get into items that might be more possible to pull
off in the next few weeks. So, Sarah, you've made
(03:14):
this list, right.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
I have made this list, and the last time I
reviewed it was actually or like renewed. It was at
our best laid plans live last year. So I actually
got out my workbook where I had done my notes,
and it was like handily sitting there. So I definitely
recommend if you do this exercise, putting it somewhere that
you know you will find. I actually found that a
very risky place to put it. And really, if I'm
(03:37):
thinking about I should probably take pictures of that and
just stick it into Apple notes or somewhere a little
bit more evergreen. But yeah, I love this exercise.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, I think I'm going to do a full on
refresh of it this November when we meet up for
Best Laid Plans Live, partly because I've been looking at
once I made. I made one in like twenty fifteen.
I think I made one in twenty ten, one in
twenty eighteen, and some of this stuff feels, I don't know,
a little stale to me now. I don't know if
I've reworked some dreams, some I've done, some just aren't
(04:05):
as appealing to me anymore. And so I think it
is something that you do want to update every now
and again. But are there things on your list of
one hundred dreams that you've done in the last year
or so?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Sarah, Yeah, I had to actually go back and look
and the things on there that I have accomplished within
the past twelve months are that I got a book published.
I mean it's not like out yet, but it's coming
out in December.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
It's coming in. The rock is rolling down the hill
at this point. It would take a lot for it
to stop at this point. Yes, So that's very exciting.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
And that was always fairly high up on my one
hundred dreams list for a long time. So that's really fun.
I had on there to see Taylor Swift, which I
accomplished in October of twenty twenty four. It was great fun.
I had qualify for the Boston Marathon on there. Interestingly,
I didn't have run the Boston Marathon on there, which
was presient because I did qualify based on their sort
of time cut offs to apply. I didn't actually make
(04:58):
the time cutoffs to race, and no, I can't run anymore.
So I'm just considered this as done as done. But
I did officially. You know, most people use the definition
of qualify as meeting their qual time, so I did
that twice. I will consider that done. And then also
one that hasn't happened yet, but I was happy to
see it on the list because it's going to come
to fruition. Is that I wanted to go back to Hawaii,
and we are planning that for next summer.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And planning as in, you've already booked. I booked like
hotel and so yeah, okay, so not just like a
wild dream like ooh, we might do Hawaii next summer.
There's dates on the calendar, there is a hotel reservation.
It is correct. Again, rock rolling down the hill at
this point, Yes, what about you? Yeah, well, I was
looking back over my list, singing the bax b minor
Mass that had been on the list for ages. I
(05:42):
had wanted to hear concerts of it too, and I've
done that as well with some other groups that have
performed it. It was more easy to hear other people
perform it than to find a local choir that was
doing it. But finally made that happen on New Year's
Eve twenty twenty four, so that is done. I also
wanted to go to Portugal. I think I thought of
it as more of a leisure and i'd see like
the Azores or however you say that too. But I
(06:04):
went for work and Portugal is still beautiful. I spoke
at a retreat on the coast in Portugal, and so
I was still enjoying the beautiful Portuguese coast, even if
it wasn't really a relaxing trip in that sense that.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Sounds like a retreat I would want to go on
next time. I'll have to be an in the audience. Yeah,
I know, it's drag you along exactly.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
It was good. Yeah, it's funny. I actually had the
Taylor Swift I mentioned I wanted to go to concerts
with my kids, and I, you know, had in a
This was like in twenty eighteen. I guess there's something
when I made it and I said, some friends took
their daughters to see Taylor Swift and said it was
really fun. And of course now I've done gone to
see Taylor as well. That wasn't in the last year.
I guess it was a little outside the last year,
(06:47):
but it was good. So more things hopefully to come.
I have one thing on there that will likely happen
over Christmas, but I'm a little I get funny about
talking about things before they actually superstitious. After Christmas. Yeah, yeah,
we will revisit that topic. Another list you might want
to make is a someday maybe list, or you might
(07:09):
call it a project list. So this is loosely based
on David Allen's idea. The productivity writer David Allen talks
about a someday maybe list, which solves the problem of
things you would like to do or a need to
do so not fun list of one hundred dreams type things,
but they are not urgent or particularly important in the
(07:32):
next week or so, let's say. And what often happens
is people make these very very long to do lists
that are totally useless because they have all the items
that should go on a Someday maybe list. And so
in the middle of your list that says send invoices
on the Jones projects, set up meeting with Rebecca, and
(07:53):
organize garage, Like why is that there? That's not happening today, right,
But yeah, you still want to do it at some point,
so it goes on these someday maybe or project lists,
whatever you want to call it. You have this going
as well, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yes, I use mine a little bit more speculatively, like
we'll talk about it later, because I use nested goals list.
If I think something might happen in the year, it's
probably on my annual list, not my Sunday maybe. I
use someday maybe for like, I really don't have a
timeframe for this, and a lot of it's just like, oh,
this is a cool idea that would be fun, and
sometimes I've ended up doing stuff on there. I think
actually launching my courses was like a someday maybe idea
(08:28):
at one point. So some of these can really bubble
up and become big, and then others are going to
sit there until I die and it's totally fine. Like
I have this medical memoir that I'm probably never going
to write, but I want it in there with the
ideas that I came up with because I don't want
to lose those ideas. But it doesn't belong on any
of my other like sort of real time lists, because
I have no concrete plans to put this into fruition.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, mine tends to be more of things that I
know I do need to do or would very much
like to do, not fun things, but are are there.
And so it would be like get new running shoes now,
I do not actually need to do that this week.
I could do it at any point in the next
few months. Most likely I'm not exactly running so much
(09:09):
that it matters, but I don't want to forget that
I have to do it. And so where this list
winds up being helpful is I have it running, and
sometimes I get a little bit more gung ho about
doing stuff on it, like, Okay, I actually need to
make sure that Henry has shorts that fit, or that
I need to go through the kid's books and see
(09:31):
if some need to be moved to a different bookshelf
because they've changed reader levels of who is looking at
those books, or we need to paint this room. And
it doesn't have to happen now, but I don't want
to forget it. And then if I'm feeling excited, I
will go on there and pull something off. And sometimes
it's fun if you have a little extra time on
(09:51):
a Friday to order new shoes.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Totally, I think seasonally is a nice cadence to browse
your Sunday maybe list and you can either decide to
put on that season's list if you make one, or
you can be like, you know, what, next week looks
really empty, let me just put this on a day, like,
let me just schedule it, let me whatever you just said,
clean out the shorts or whatever, let me just put
it on Wednesday, because hey, I have an open day
or something like that. So I don't think you need
(10:15):
to look at your Sunday maybe every day. That would
be overkill, but having some kind of cadence is a
good idea. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Absolutely. One more that we're going to do before our
ad break is the idea of an travel specific list,
so a more time bound travel list. So now, obviously
on your list of one hundred dreams, you might have
all the places you want to visit in your bucket list,
but travel is the sort of thing you can start
(10:42):
to plan more specifically over for sure the next twelve months,
but you can start thinking over the next I don't
know three years or so of where you'd like to
slot things, particularly if you have school age kids and
are really only traveling over Christmas break, spring break, summer. Right,
so you could just set up for the next three
ye where are you going in each of these slots
(11:03):
and obviously not all of them, but it helps with
thinking about like, Okay, is this the year we're aiming
for this country, or is this year we're doing something
a little bit more local because we're saving money for
two years doing this big trip and it might then
change depending on ages of kids, how many will be
home that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yes, definitely good to put your kids ages on there
and any family milestone. I kind of like five years,
And I do not see this as like an actual
concrete plan. I agree that really only the kind of
next twelve months and then maybe a few special trips
beyond that. Like you do have to book certain things
very far in advance, but most things twelve months is
a enughly way I see them as ideas, like, you know,
(11:42):
maybe I have Japan in there for twenty twenty seven,
but then I decide, you know what, actually we have
this other pressing thing, and I'll do that in twenty
twenty eight. But at least I have a place to
start from.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Plus it's super.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Fun to think about. And then a lot of times
you will go with what you have there because you
start thinking about it, and then you know, one day
you start looking at hotels and these things just become
more and more concrete until you're bookingaing them.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Absolutely. All right, Well we're going to take a quick
ad break and then we'll be back with more of
our list of lists. Well, we are back talking lists
of lists, all the lists you might want to be making.
(12:27):
The lists we make and what they do in our lives.
So another kind of list that can be fun to
make is a seasonal fun list. We do this a
sort of different versions, Sarah, your seasonal fund list are
really more of your like quintile goal lists, right, that's
where you'd put these things.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I usually I've been including a category called fun with
it like as one of my sort of domains or
categories when I make my seasonal list, And that's been
my answer to the seasonal fun list that provides enough
room for me. Maybe I have less fun than you.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
I don't know, maybe have less fun. Well, I longtime
blog readers know that I make a couple of different
seasonal fun lists each year. Definitely a summer fun list,
So those are the seasonal specific things I want to
do over the course of the summer to make it
feel like I had a summer. I often do one
for the holiday season. So there's obviously many things one
(13:16):
can do to celebrate the holidays. Different shows, you can
go to, light displays, activities, sort of home based traditions,
and it helps you figure out what you really care
about and what is like, Eh, nobody really liked going
to that thing, so we don't have to put it
on the list for next year, and it makes you
feel like you didn't get to January and think I
(13:37):
didn't do this, or if it does get to January
but it turns out that they are still have the
light display up for another week, you can block it
in for the first week of January and enjoy it.
I have done a fall fun list. I have not
probably when this airs, I may not have published it yet,
or maybe I will Monday or Wednesday of this week.
But it's been fun to start thinking about me out
(14:00):
of summer and we're still when we're recording this, I
am still in summer. But it starts looking forward to
things like, oh, yeah, I'm going to be getting to
see beautiful leaves in upstate New York in mid October,
Like I'm excited about that, and I have it on
the calendar and I can look forward to it, and
I'm going to take a long bike ride somewhere in
(14:21):
the leaves and see that. So yeah, it just focuses
your fun a little bit.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And then I listened to that and this is my
rage season.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
It's like that everyone.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Else has nice weather and crisp, pretty colors, and we
have hurricanes and it's.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Gross and travel somewhere.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I actually get madder in fall than summer because summer
like everyone's hot, and in fall it's when everyone else
gets hot. But you know what, Yeah, the number one
item that sort of has found its way onto my
fall fund list is to like get out of here
for a weekend and see some fall And honestly, I
would like to include that for the rest of my days.
That should be a standing item on my fall fun list,
and I do already have it planned for this year.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Oh so, okay, I'm glad to hear that there will
be somewhere crisp boots may and be involved, maybe even
a pumpkin spice latte. One hundred percent. It's happening, happening,
It's happening. Another list, which is sort of a subset
of the list of one hundred dreams. We sort of
have this global list and then we can break it
down into smaller lists that sometimes people find a little
bit more fruitful as they are thinking of is a
(15:18):
local bucket list. So this is anything you might enjoy
doing that is within about one or maybe two hours
of your house. So think somewhere you might get on
a Saturday, if you got your act together and plan
to do it right. So you're probably not driving four
hours somewhere, you're probably not flying somewhere. But if there's
(15:40):
something that's a seventy minute drive from your house that's
within the realm of possibility of it's something you really
wanted to do, and so you make this list. And
this is a good list to involve other family members
in as well, because these are often things you are
definitely doing with family members, like on the weekend, if
you're looking for something to bring people to, what would
that be. And as you're in a place for multiple years,
(16:03):
you can start adding to the list taking away from
the list, and there's certain little kid things that we
probably just don't do as much. I'm not sure if
I will wind up at the Police Touch Museum anymore,
but it was there for a long time.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
One nice thing about a local bucket list is that
you can use it as a reference by looking at
last year's list when you're planning this falls list or
this season's list. But remember that you don't have to
do everything. Just because you did it last year doesn't
mean you need to do it again. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Absolutely, we are not in the holiday season yet, but
we were getting there eventually. Which a lot of people
make gift lists right like of what you would buy
other people, But it might actually be helpful to make
a list of things other people could buy you because
you will probably be asked. And this is a good
(16:52):
place to park something that you were thinking about getting
but maybe aren't one hundred percent sure, like if you
want to spend the money on it. And so it's
actually helpful to be the sort of person that others
can shop for if you are in a family or
friend group that believes in buying gifts for each other,
to not be the person that stumps everyone. So if
(17:13):
you think of something, put it on a list like this.
Do you ever do this, Sarah?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
For myself, I do not for a gift. I'm more
like things I might want to buy in the future.
Sometimes I'll like throw that onto my notes app just
because I find that sometimes the alert phades with time,
and then I can save myself an impulse buy and
I guess it will say that also in addition to
I love this idea because this is different than the
traditional giftless idea. But on the note of the traditional
(17:37):
giftless if you do think of an idea for someone.
For some reason, I'm very good at writing things down,
except for this. I'm like, oh, I won't forget that.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That is so.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Obvious, and I always forget it. So I've become much
better about capturing these, and then I'm always so glad
I have them.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, And a quick note on capturing something, you can
always email yourself. If you are the sort of person
who does process your primary to current at least on occasion,
then if you email yourself, you will in fact see
it and hopefully at a time when you can act
on it, putting it on a different list like a
collection you have in your planner of gift ideas, or
(18:13):
a future note that is tied to December ten in
your calendar, or whatever it happens to be. Grocery shopping list.
I thought this was sort of self evident, but I
am married to someone who does a reasonable amount of
the grocery shopping in our family, and he does not
tend to shop from a list, which is one of
(18:33):
the reasons we have ten bags of tortilla chips in
our pantry, because you know you might run out of
tortilla chips. Oh well, we eat tortilla chips. Let's buy
tortilla chips again. But there are worse things that could happen, as.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Gonna say, at least that's a fairly non perishable item.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So yes, exactly exactly what I think. We have like
three tubs of sour cream and our that's more. That's all.
We weren't out it. Then you're like, God, I make
fatas and you don't have sour cream, and then people
are upset. But you know that won't happen in the
next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Apparently, I always, always I can't like imagine going. I
mean I would stop and get a few things, but
that's not usually how my lifestyle works. It's usually like
I'm getting the week's worth of things, and I always
have to have a list.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well he's getting I think what would be a week's
worth of things. It's just it's the things we always get, right,
and there might be like one dinner that we've thought
about that would be different, and so then that would
just be in the mental space, I guess. But when
we do costco shopping trips, I have now created a
do not buy list, just because again you wind up
(19:37):
with it's one thing if you've got ten bags of
tortilla chips that are normal sized, but if you have
let's say, twelve giant containers of ketchup, you really don't
need to buy anymore.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Probably not, Probably not, So do not buy list?
Speaker 1 (19:55):
That is a new one. Do not buy list.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
I know, as long as the person shopping refers.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
To it, refers to it well. And there's also one
can make the decision that it's a good enough thing
that somebody else is doing the grocery shopping that your
idea on how to do it better may not be
entirely welcome in this case. So a favorite meals list
This is something I'm pondering creating because we tend to
do a rotation of meals during the week, but I
(20:21):
find we tend to be doing the same things on
weekends too, and I think it might be fun to
shake things up a little bit, especially if there is
that one meal, if that's getting shopped for, to change
up what that specifically is, or if I go to
the grocery store at some point getting things like that.
Do you have a favorite meals list?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
I don't, but I am very attracted to the idea of, like,
especially doing this by season, because then you can also
just make sure you're incorporating like oh, everybody loves to
do barbecuing the summer, or make this stew when it
gets fall or something like that. So no, we don't
tend to do it. I mean, I feel like I
have a lot of the favorites in my head. So
this is one where I have not actually gone through
making a list. But I guess one other beautiful thing
(21:01):
about making a list here is that if you keep
it somewhere, that would be a fun thing to look
back on, like a decade from now, like, oh, look
at my kids love to eat. I don't know that's mental.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
They still aren't eating anything. Oh boy, Friday punch list.
So this is what I call the little tasks that
kind of stack up during the week and they do
need to get done, but they are not urgent, and
so it's different from a someday maybe list in that
they really do actually have to happen pretty soon, and
so you want to find a spot on your calendar
(21:31):
of this week to do them, but they're not your
top priority, so you don't want to give them your
best time. You don't want to give them time that
you've carved out for doing deeper work. If you're thinking
about something you don't want to be stopping in the
middle of it to go fill out a permission slip
or book a hotel, or to answer a non urgent
(21:53):
email and set up an appointment somewhere. So I keep
a running list of those and then go through them
on Friday. I call it a punch list because if
you've ever had a contractor do a major renovation project,
at the end they start with making what they call
a punch list. It's just all these little things that
they still need to get to at the end before
they close it out. And so that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
For me.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My Friday punch list.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
MIN intend to just kind of accumulate all my weekly planners.
But I feel like my nested goals is like my
answer to a lot of these, just arranged a little
bit differently. And I don't have a specific day, although
Wednesday has become a big administrative day, so maybe I
do have a Wednesday punch list and I don't even
realize it.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, well, because I mean those aren't necessarily goals per se,
they're just you know, tasks that have accumulated during the week. Right, like, yeah,
and if you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Do inbox processing and part of that is sort of
getting done the quick little things that you left there
until clear out time, that can kind of comprise an
electronic punch list of sorts.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Yeah, all right, Well we're going to take one more
quick ad break and then we will be back with
a little bit more on our lists of lists. So
our next list of things you might want to have
(23:08):
is thinking about all sorts of media consumption. Lots of
people have a to be read list of books you
might want to read sometime soon, but you could also
have a to be watched TBW as it were a
TBL maybe to be listened to. I honestly, I'm not
really doing many of these at the moment. I have
a TBL through virtue of my year long Beethoven project.
(23:31):
I'm following the complete Beethoven calendar, and so that is
my TBL list. Each day, I have a listing that
goes with that. But you know, I haven't been organizing
books very well, Sari, You've been doing this a little
bit more, especially over summer. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Over summer, I usually look at the Modern Missus Darcy
Summer Reading Guide and just pick a whole slew of
things off of that because it hasn't steered me wrong
yet and the summer was no exception. And then what
tends to happen. I don't get like precious about it.
I just get the whole thing circle all the ones
that look good, and then randomly them from the library,
and then whatever comes in I read or I don't read.
You know, if I run out of time, I just
return it and pick something else. But that way I
(24:07):
kind of know I have a nice variety to choose from,
and it's worked really well for Fall. I'm kind of
planning on doing something similar and I just came across
a really fun list actually from Laura Tremaine's newsletter. It
was like the fall releases she's looking forward to, and
so many of them were very much up my alley.
So I may use that as sort of the Fall
(24:27):
version of what I do in the summer. So excited
for that.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
And how about like watching and listening? Are you keeping
track of this?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I do track it, like, but I track it after
the fact. I don't plan it, if that makes sense,
So like I do I write my planner if I've
watched the TV show, I just like put in this
little media section, so it's fun to be able to
look back on that. But aside from just paying attention,
if I have a show that I'm super excited about,
like knowing when it's coming out, like I think Emily
in Paris season five releases in December, I know about
(24:53):
that already, and Annabelle and I were trying to figure
out the Dance Mom's New Era second season release, but
the internet does not seem to want to share that
information with us yet. So things like that I have
on my radar specific shows, but I wouldn't say I
keep a active running list, although it sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, yeah, I could, although I do have a puzzle
queue right now, like I ordered several puzzles from White Mountain,
which is a puzzle company based in the United States.
They make very nice puzzles, and I had two that
I did at the beach that I ordered for the beach,
and one was waiting for me when I came home,
So that's next in the queue. So that's kind of
(25:33):
a fun way to spend some time on. It's always
seasonal right. I tried to do a matchup of summer
and then fall and so forth with my puzzles. Another
kind of list is friends and when you've least gotten
together or talked with this person, because everyone's busy and
(25:56):
sometimes you know, a while can go before you've seen someone,
and it's not that you couldn't have if you tried.
It's just that things were busy and so it didn't
kind of happen. But if you sort of remind yourself, like, oh, yeah,
I haven't seen this person in a couple of weeks,
I should send a text that can be helpful to
nudge that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I definitely don't do this, but I think it's really
nice and it's true, like we never regret the connections
we make and keep, so I think it's a lovely idea.
I feel like I just let mine unfold a little
bit more holistically. But you're right, there's probably some relationships
that could use some more regular attention. And by the way,
the last time we saw each other was in July.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
In case you and we will see each other again
in November, So yeah, i'd say every couple of months
that it happens, although we see each other virtually, as
we record these good points. A fun list you can
make if you are ever feeling like I'm not getting anywhere,
life is terrible or whatever. Might be a done list
or a greatest hits list, so list things that you
(26:59):
have done or have accomplished. It could be sort of
a retrospective list of one hundred dreams that you could
picture someone you twenty five years ago, Let's say, making
a list of one hundred dreams, and the things you
would have done that would have been on any reasonable
list of one hundred dreams, So there could be lots
(27:21):
of stuff that would be there. You list the trips
you've taken, the sort of life goals you've met, professional accomplishments,
any hobby things that you have done, and that just
kind of makes life feel a little bit more like, oh, yeah,
it's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I've started to do a little bit of that on
my blog because I've seen people do well, like k
who blogs a Grateful Kids, these monthly recaps that are
really detailed, and it is a nice way to just
catalog like, oh I did that, and sometimes when you
look back and a month seemed a little bit lackluster,
but you actually look at the objective data, like flip
through your planner and you're like, see what you checked off,
you're like, actually I am missing the forest for the trees.
(27:59):
Then a lot happened, and yes they're stressful points, but
let's celebrate these wins. So I think it's nice to
do that with a very objective eye, because we tend
to otherwise, I think, focus on like the one negative
thing sometimes.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, are there any other lists you keep.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Sarah, Yes, we have a cumulative list that's very old,
stored in Apple notes. That is my kid's funny things
they've said. Now, I highly recommend doing this because when
a kid says something ridiculous or just really insightful, like
a toddler, I don't know, just says something. I could
give you examples, but I'm not gonna pull it out
right now. But anyway, capture it right then and there
(28:35):
you'll think again, you'll think, oh, I'll remember that.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You won't.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
But if you write it down and you put the date,
then it lives forever. And that apple note, let me
tell you, like we whip that out at a restaurant
every once in a while. You can't do it up
too often then it's boring. But like if it's every
couple of years, everyone just cracks up and you have
this little collection and is precious, so highly recommend that
list absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
These are just some of our favorite lists that we
keep with thee to hear yours. Feel free to let
us know. You can always write me Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com let me know what lists you are
keeping and any that have transformed your life. I would
love to hear about that as well, because I'm always
on the hunt for the life changing list that I
haven't thought of but is going to make everything better.
(29:19):
So can't wait to learn about it. In the meantime,
Hey question tips for encouraging a potential summer camper who's
feeling a little reluctant. So somebody is thinking about sleep
away camp for their kid for next summer. Yes, it
is September, but some of the early bird deadlines for
many of these places are late September October, So if
(29:42):
you are going to sign a kid up, probably better
to do it. But if the kid is not sure,
you know, and obviously it's a long time from now,
what can you do to help them with this? Thinking?
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Well, I feel like you should go first because mine's
a little contrarian. It's your answer?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Yeah, Well, I mean, I'm not saying you have to
go to summer camp either, And I got to say,
I'm a little wary of the ones that there's some
people who, you know, some camps is basically all summer long,
and I get that sometimes that's more of a cultural
thing or you know, I get it, but it does
seem like a really long time for people to be gone.
And so I'm talking more about like a week, you know,
(30:19):
or two weeks of somebody going to camp, and that
might be worth if somebody is a little reluctant but interested,
trying to get them into the idea of well, you
can always try it and it's only a week, Like
we sent one child to one that was only five
nights this summer, and you say, well, you'll be on
(30:40):
the other side of five nights very very quickly, Like
this time is not long. So at the end of
it you will know what it's like. You can decide
to do it again or not. But I think you'll
always wonder if you thought it was something that sounded
maybe cool, but you weren't sure, like at some point
you just have to take the plunge and try it.
But you know, obviously many of these camps, especially if
they are a commercial oriented camp, like they have a
(31:03):
cool camp video, right, you see lots of cool looking
kids on this giant swing or water skiing or on
quads or like playing paintball or whatever it is that
they do with this camp, and that can obviously be
very exciting if your kid is into that. If there's
somebody in your neighborhood or school who's been that could
(31:23):
be good to get the kids to talk to that.
Ruth suggested watching Bunked, although she said later seasons weren't
that good, so I don't know. Maybe I have to
choose an episode carefully. And then if going with a
friend is obviously a great way to have somebody who
might be a little reluctant to do it, give it
(31:44):
a shot, because again, if it's only five nights and
you're there with somebody that you really like, like, how
bad could it possibly be? And so that might encourage
a reluctant camper as well.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
With my kids, I don't think any other selling point
would do a thing except for the friend one. And
if they was a friend that they really liked and
wanted to spend time with, that could be like an
absolute like magic Okay, yeah I want to do it,
but yeah, I just want to be careful here, because
I think I got sucked into the idea that like
your kids had to go to camp or you were
depriving them of some magical experience and this gift of
(32:15):
like being independent. And yeah, there's some great things about camp,
but I was faced with because who didn't want to
go back to camp? And I struggled with that because
I felt like, oh my gosh, like what did I
do wrong? Or like do I push them because everyone
says like they should go? And then I just realized
I cannot force them to, Like it felt wrong, and
I believe I made the right choice into saying if
you want to go to camp, go to camp. If
(32:36):
you don't want to go to camp, you can go
to day camp. You're not sitting home all day. I
mean I'm not talking about like older teens, but like
younger kids. But you don't have to to be away
from the house as a single digit kid or even
like as a as a tween. It's not a requirement.
And so just make sure that you're encouraging is because
you think they would really have a lot of fun,
(32:58):
and not because you feel like you're doing what you're
supposed to do.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
Yeah. I mean Alex went to sleep away camp for
two weeks this summer and he really had a good time.
And I think it's partly that you could do stuff
in an overnight camp that you probably wouldn't at a
lot of day camps, and so that was just a
big selling point for it, and I think he will
wind up going back. I think Ruth will wind up
(33:22):
going back to her camp as well. I mean, it
really is. It can be a lot of fun. Oh
my gosh.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
If kids love it like, they should go Like. I
think it's a wonderful thing to offer your kids. I
just don't think it's a thing to push, especially if
they've been and they're answering with a knowledgeable perspective.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, if they don't want to go back, yeah, then
that's ridiculous. Yeah. No, no, you can't. I do not
believe in pushing people for optional stuff like that at all.
Our kids are not us. It is possible that you
love summer camp but your kids do not. It's also
possible that you felt sad you didn't get to go
to summer camps and now you're like, I'm giving you
this opportunity, but your kids don't actually want the opportunity,
or they try it out side it's not for them,
(34:00):
and then that is what it is, all right. Love
of the Week, Sarah, what do you have this week?
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Well? I was really piggybacking on yours, but I will
say it was very I like them when the teachert well, okay,
so we're talking about school, Laura's gonna share hers. But
I gotta love it when the teacher sent me an
exact link to what they want, and then I could
just purchase it without any like thought.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah. So when I was doing the notes for this episode,
we had just gone to Target, was at the beach
and we were kind of hit by the side of
Hurricane Eron, which was making its way up the Atlantic coast,
thus closing the beach for a couple of days. And
it was very rainy, and then it was very windy
and waves were coming up almost to the boardwalk, so
(34:43):
clearly nobody was going on the beach. She's like, well,
what do we do? We will go to Target and
go school supply shopping, since we had the lists at
that point for most of the children. And it was fine,
you know, everyone could get their own stuff from the list,
but it was fun looking at the receipt afterwards, because
I don't know if your targets are like my targets.
(35:04):
Sometimes things are not necessarily priced labeled incredibly well. So
I was just looking at I like, Okay, it's Target,
it's probably cheap, and I'm like looking at the list afterwards,
and There'll be random items from Up and Up or
some other Target brand, but it doesn't say what it is.
It just this sale item was sixty five cents now
thirty nine cents. I have no idea what did I
(35:26):
buy that was thirty nine cents? People even sell things
for thirty nine cents and race carently they do. What's
that an eraser, a plastic you know, maybe or the ruler.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
I actually have no idea what it was, but sometimes
they sell like little boxes of colored pencils really cheap too.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, so well we have a thirty nine cent item
whatever that happens to be. So that could be my
love of the week. Well, this has been best of
both worlds. We have been talking lists of lists that
we like. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Can 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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