I had planned to publish a Part 2 to my AMA today, until I came across this question from a reader, Alex M.: “Super personal so please feel free to skip! I’m also incredibly curious about what people regret, or how they think about regrets. What are yours? How do you?”

As I began writing, I realized I had so much to say about regret—including things I’ve never shared about my divorce—that I wanted to devote an entire post to answering it honestly. Let’s get to it. x

In the earliest days of my separation from my husband, I agonized over my decision to leave. I was operating entirely off of the intuitive sense that something wasn’t working, and that I needed to leave in order to understand what that something was. Back then, I grasped for answers—from books, from friends. When I called my mom for advice, she told me, “I’m afraid that you don’t really understand what regret is, since you’ve never had to experience it.”

Up until that point, I had never regretted anything, and why would I? Every leap I’d ever taken had paid off. And I knew that I could undo any of my choices if I needed to: I could transfer to a different college, move back to a city I’d left, switch careers. But, it turned out, I couldn’t go back to my husband.

When I left my husband in the summer of 2022, a part of me believed that I could go back to him if I needed to—he had been such a huge part of my life for eleven years, that, even as I left, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that there might someday come a day when he wasn’t. Throughout most of that summer and fall, we attended couple’s therapy together and explored the possibility of getting back together. That fall, at the advice of our therapist, I spent the night with him in the home we had once shared. I was supposed to stay for the week, but left after one night, writing in my journal as soon as I got back to my apartment, “Staying feels so much safer than leaving. Who’s to say which is better? If I stay, I feel like I will spend the rest of my life asking myself, But what if I had left?”

Still, two months later, I decided that I wanted to stay. When my husband came into my apartment to drop off our dog Toast, who we still shared custody of, I handed him a letter. He sat on my couch reading it: a heartfelt apology and entreaty to get back together. When he reached the end, my heart dropped when he told me he couldn’t do it. I had caused him too much pain, and he wanted to give the new relationship he had just started a chance.1

Finally, I knew what regret felt like. What I didn’t yet understand was that regret, at its worst, is a verdict, but it can also be an important teacher.

At the time, regret felt like the deepest grief and shame I have ever experienced. It was as if my husband, all of his friends, and his family, who had felt like my own, had died and I was entirely responsible for their deaths. At the same time that I grieved losing them, I had to contend with my deep shame. I felt like a monster, like I would never be worthy of love again, like I might be the worst person to ever walk the planet. The pain was so deep that I woke up sobbing every single night.

At one point, early on, I Googled “divorce regret” and found myself on the saddest forum I have ever visited. In it, men wrote about their grief and regret around leaving their wives, or engaging in affairs that led their wives to leave them. They mostly wrote from small apartments, isolated from their families, only able to see now what they had lost. For a long time, I lived in the airless grief of my own small, post-divorce apartment until slowly, I began to wonder if my regret was trying to tell me something beyond, “You ruined everything.”

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

It’s funny how, when I take the time to pause and reflect on my week (as ‘Sunday Edition’ creates the space for me to do), I can often identify a theme. And when I really look at it, there’s often a lesson to glean from it. This week, I put myself out there repeatedly. It began with this post (your comments have meant so much to me), then expanded into new social situations and new-to-me experiences—all from a place of safety and honoring my nervous system.

It felt akin to exploring outside as a kid all day, knowing I had a warm house and dinner to come home to. I’ve been thinking about how to create that more for myself—this sense of being free, but held, to explore and take risks. Read on for highlights from my week, including a few favorite outfits, recs, and a wildly good and simple (!) sweet potato dinner:

The weather was all over the place this week. Here are three of my favorite outfits—for an art opening, coffee with friends, and dinner out!

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This simple meal—born out of a sparsely stocked fridge and picked-over garden—was so delicious and satisfying; far greater than the sum of its parts. The cool tofu over the roasted sweet potatoes, topped with rich and caramelized scallions and a crunch from some fermented greens is the perfect combination of flavor, textures, and temperature. Just trust me on this one. I wanted a second serving almost as soon as I finished my first…!

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I write briefly, but honestly, about body image in this post. If you feel this might be difficult for you, for any reason, please trust yourself and skip this piece.

I had a completely different post slated and ready to go live this morning. That piece, a reflection on some relational dynamics I’m navigating, was good and I was excited for it to go live because I knew so many of you would relate to it. But it was also incendiary and something that would be difficult to come back from once it was out floating in your inboxes…

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

Beginning last weekend, I got hit hard by luteal phase. For the past eight days, I’ve woken up every single morning at 3 a.m., something that used to happen to me all the time, but hasn’t in months.

If I know one thing about insomnia (unfortunately, I know a lot about insomnia), it’s to resist fighting it. By Wednesday, I decided to embrace the early wake-ups and head to the 6 a.m. class at my favorite workout studio. Then back again on Thursday and Friday. It’s been years since I was a regular at early bird classes, which were my go-to until I left my traditional nine-to-five and realized I could spend mornings reading, journaling, and working on my fiction. I was surprised to remember how much I loved it.

The early movement and rush of endorphins noticeably improved my mood and productivity, and I found that I was actually able to fall asleep around 9 each night, a schedule that works better for my body (even if I had to excuse myself from a few plans slightly early this week). I’m still not getting enough sleep, but it is a noticeable improvement from four hours a night to six. I am such a creature of habit, but have found myself reminded again and again recently that habits are meant to change and adapt as we do. What worked for me at one point, or on one day, may not be what works for me the next!

Any tips for combatting cycle-related sleep issues?? (A woman I met at a party last night brought my attention to the link between hormones and histamines and shared that a protocol that she says changed her life. I’m going to talk to my doctor about it this week!)

Leave a comment

In spite of the sleep issues, it was a beautiful and tender week filled with hikes and hangs with girlfriends (more to share soon). Read on for a few highlights and recommendations, including 9 tangible practices that have noticeably increased my happiness:

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The thing that confounded friends (and pretty much everyone in my life) about my decision to end my marriage is that I was, at least on the surface, happy.

Back then, almost all of my free time was built around entertainment and enjoyment, organized around the question, What do we want to do? On weeknights, my husband and I would cook a new Alison Roman or Molly Baz recipe then eat it in front of the television, a habit we picked up during COVID. On weekends, we checked out new restaurants in Portland, and drank sour beers after hikes in the Columbia River Gorge, or traveled to boutique hotels in cities with new restaurants, new hikes, new beers.

Everything about our life together signaled that we had made it, so I couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel fulfilled in the way I had been promised.

It took years for me to admit this to myself—how could I have so much and still be unhappy? To feel so disconnected from the life I had built? The moment I acknowledged this, it was as if a knot came loose. My life and marriage unraveled faster than I could grab hold of the thread, and I was left with a new question, What is a happy life, if not this?

It’s only now, four summers later, that I can begin to see the answer.

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

Except for one concert, there wasn’t a single night this week I went inside before the sun. Every evening, I felt so energized by the sunshine (Can you believe it’s nine o’clock??, a daily refrain) that I found it nearly impossible to pull myself away from the long walks, dinners on my back patio, and plans with friends that went on and on this week. Read on for highlights and recommendations, including:

• A simple outfit that’s basically pajamas but looks much cuter

• Recommendations, including a documentary I loved

• The reason I bought another Oura ring (…if it helps, I didn’t see this coming either)

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There is so much to get into this post that I’m inclined to cut the small talk and get into things. When I asked for questions last week, you delivered with droves of juicy, thoughtful responses! I’ve done my best to be as transparent and honest as possible in my responses, including:

• If I plan to have kids (!)

• How and when I use social media

• A little BTS of my writing process and my updated beauty routine

• Whether I ever indulge in “crappy foods”

• Van and hiking safety

• What it’s really like to share so much of my life with strangers

This entire post is behind a paywall because I get into some personal things here. Let’s get into it!

What’s your current trajectory on having a baby? I’m writing this with a baby on my boob. For what it’s worth, in my six months of mothering, it’s been full of both novelty and remembering — Lizzy R.

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

My decision to return home came not unlike Forrest Gump’s stop mid-stride in Monument Valley, or a toddler waving jazz hands at the end of a meal. All done! I was sitting with Toast at the south rim of Crater Lake, its water bluer than the sky, with every intention of heading north to the Deschutes National Forest just outside of Bend, when I realized, “I want to go home.”

I had spent most of my week slowly making my way up the 395, a route that takes a little longer than the 5, but is dotted with hikes to alpine lakes and goes straight through Reno, where I spent high school and where one of my oldest friends and her husband currently live (pictured in the Polaroid above!). I stayed with them on Mother’s Day, only after they assured me that I wasn’t crashing dinner with his family, and took off in the morning for one of their favorite campgrounds. The pin they sent, a seasonal sno-park, sat beyond a nondescript turnoff a few miles south of the entrance to Crater Lake and had free dispersed camping along a rushing creek. As I pulled my van in, I was relieved to discover that I was the only camper so Toast could run free and I could set up my camping chair by the water, undisturbed. After a short hike, I made dinner and headed to bed early just as the mosquitos began to come out, feeling incredibly grateful to have access to yet another beautiful place.

My trip was filled with nights like this one, but by the time I made it to Crater Lake I felt, more than anything, like I needed time to integrate the experiences I was lucky enough to have; to sit at home with my dog and my partner, who I missed so much, and just be before I head out for the next leg of my adventure. I’ve been home for three nights, and have bounced back far more quickly than I did my first adventure, already returning to the rhythms of my days at home. As always, I have so much to share from the week, including:

• My latest hyper-fixation lunch (comes together in five minutes!)

• A show, book, and album I loved this week

• Why I’m doing a clothes buying freeze (join me??)

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When I picked up my van last fall, I had been planning for it and working with my builder on it for over a year, and saving for many more. I had plenty of time to envision (and obsess over) my dream space on wheels, which functions at times as a forest cabin, urban oasis, surf or ski shack, festival headquarters, or writing retreat, depending on the day. One of the aspects I found most challenging, but also appealing, was how to create this in such a tiny space; I wanted it to be all of these things, and look cute at the same time (…the phrase “backwards and in heels” comes to mind).

I thought carefully about every single item I put in the van, ensuring that everything, down to the dish towels, would be both functional and decorative. I may have driven myself a bit nuts in the process, but the effort feels worth it, given how inviting and functional the space is now, with only my absolute favorite things. My deep-dive into hyper-curating a small space also had a reciprocal impact on my home: I filled the van with some of my favorite products from home, while I began to donate things at home once I learned how little I really need to feel like I have everything. Today, I’m sharing my favorite things in the van, including:

• The items I love so much from home, I bought a second for the van

• Functional clothes that work for hiking or dinner

• Those gorgeous dishtowels (which I’ve used and loved at home for years!)

P.S. As always, there are no affiliate links, partnerships, or trades in this post—just genuine recs!

*Our Place Pans. While ceramic coatings have notoriously short lifespans, I still love my Our Place pans, which I appreciate for their ease and cute colors. I bought the mini versions of the two I have at home and rarely find myself limited by what I’m able to cook in the van (you can often find them new on Poshmark, which is how I bought most of mine!). *Denotes something I loved so much, I bought a second one for the van.

Yeti 14-Ounce Mug. I once tested around thirty to-go mugs for an article, but this one is my favorite for a few reasons: It’s the perfect size for my matcha, it keeps the contents warm (even without the lid, which I try to avoid drinking from, since it’s plastic), and it has a wide mouth, which feels more like a ceramic mug. If ordering a drink to-go, I generally use one of my tumblers from Stumptown Coffee, since they’re cute, have spill-proof lids, and are slightly smaller.

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

How much time do you spend remembering? Pausing for long enough to think about all of the people you’ve been?

I finished writing Tuesday’s post while parked in my aunt’s driveway in Los Angeles. Her home is one of the few places I can return to that remains completely unchanged from my childhood—there’s the same photo of my grandmother and me on her refrigerator held by the same apple magnet, vintage Roseville pottery lining the shelves, and teetering stacks of books; evidence of a family of readers. Her yard, I’m sure, still holds plastic Easter eggs from the massive hunts she put on for us, three decades ago.

Each time I return to L.A., the city I spent my childhood and most of my twenties in, I’m overwhelmed by memories—a sensation that felt particularly poignant in the shadow of this week’s post, where I wrote, “It always feels better to fill fresh pages than to reread the old ones.” The three days I spent in L.A. this week were all about rereading old pages, as I mined memories to research the novel I’m working on, a portion of which takes place in L.A. during the summer of 2013, a summer I spent interning for the then-brand new L.A. Review of Books. I wanted to remember how it feels to run along the bluffs in Santa Monica, to sit in traffic on the way to dinner at a friend’s, and wake up to the cacophony of morning doves, crows, and either traffic or leaf blowers, depending on the fanciness of the neighborhood. The visit unearthed countless memories I hadn’t thought of in years.

On the phone with my boyfriend a few days later, I watched the sun set over the Sierras from my campsite two hours outside of the city as he remarked, “I imagine people used to spend a lot more time remembering. It’s so counter to the Capitalism that urges us to ‘live in the moment,’ but the moment is always about locating yourself in the broad context of your life.” I thought of the first time I camped on my own—a brief, 24-hour escape from L.A. to a goat farm in the hills about Altadena, where I spent the entire time so anxious to sit with my thoughts that I distracted myself with an unending stream of Radiolab episodes. As I write this, my only visitor in days a deer that’s lazily grazing the sagebrush around my van, I’m struck by how many people I’ve been since I lived in L.A. How different I am now, how much braver and sure of myself. How good it feels to take time to reflect and remember and recognize how far I’ve come.

And with that, here are a few highlights and recommendations from my week, including:

• The workout class I attend every time I’m in L.A.

• My best bites in L.A., plus an incredibly simple and satisfying vegan dinner

• The book I devoured before I watch the show

• How I reset my nervous system after the city and a spot-on Tarot pull…

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The room hummed with energy as we swept our hands above our heads on each inhale, joining our palms together before lowering them to our hearts’ centers with an exhaled Om. We raised and lowered, raised and lowered, falling out of sync to create one continuous Ommm.

We had been instructed to keep our eyes closed, but I occasionally opened mine to catch glimpses of the Reiki teacher performing “attunements” on the three students in the center of the circle we’d formed in her living room. She moved quickly, brushing bundles of fresh rosemary and mint from her garden across their shoulders, pressing rose water to their temples.

I first met the teacher—a small woman with enormous blue eyes and a German accent evocative of Heidi Klum’s—entirely by chance, while walking my dog in Ojai. Within hours of our brief conversation, I had signed up for her holotropic breathwork class, where I went into full-blown tetany (a sign of either stuck energy or rising CO2 levels, depending who you ask) and felt tears roll down my cheeks when she placed her hand on my chest and told me to release my “mother wound.” Suffice it to say, I was impressed. It wasn’t much longer before I had signed up for her Level 1 Reiki training on little more than a whim and the misguided confidence that surely I would be free as a bird by the time it rolled around in May. To have not only the space for the two-day workshop, but the thirty-two hours of driving it entailed.

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

When I pulled out of my driveway on Tuesday morning, I had no idea where I would be spending the next few nights. I only knew that I didn’t want to drive much longer than four hours per day, so planned to divide my sixteen-hour drive to Ojai, California into four parts. The days leading up to my trip had been so packed—seeing friends, wrapping up projects, prepping my house for our move—that it’s a miracle I had the wherewithal to prep a few bags of vegetables from my garden and stumble upon a packing tip at the exact moment I needed it. Along the way, I managed to find spots to spend each night that felt safe and even worth returning to (like this beautiful, remote trailhead in southern Oregon with easy access to the PCT).

Solo traveling in a van is, I’ve come to learn, either stressful beyond measure (as on Wednesday night when I couldn’t easily find a spot to sleep, then discovered mice had made a bed out of my paper towel roll) or indescribably incredible (hiking part of the PCT at dawn with Toast, watching the sun set from a campground at Pismo Beach beneath the full moon). There’s rarely any in-between, except for maybe the mind-numbing dullness of driving down the 5 for hours (thank god for ’s audiobook, which I devoured and loved).

There’s so much more I could share about my trip so far, but until then, I have so many recommendations from the week, including:

• A genius packing method I used to quickly pack my “city clothes” for this trip

• I found two holy grail hair products (a dry shampoo and tool) that are so simple and effective I’ve even been using them in the van

• The insanely good (5 minute, one pan!) spring meal I’ve been eating on repeat

A simple spring meal. Just before leaving on my trip, I harvested a row of spring turnips, rinsing and chopping their greens, which made this meal wildly easy to assemble (it says a lot that I made it three nights in a row, even when I absolutely did not feel like cooking!). Here’s how I made it:

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Every Friday morning, my friend kicks the legs out from a folding table he keeps on his porch and sets out an enormous urn of freshly brewed coffee and a homemade loaf of sourdough. Friends, neighbors, and even strangers drawn in by the sound of conversation or warm welcomes (we recently summoned someone riding by on a tandem bike), stop by in shifts, each with their own mug. The concept is incredibly simple—coffee and bread—but the main draw is the invocation my friend hand-letters on the invitations, “Increase your surface area for luck.”

The phrase, which he first came across in ’s article, inspired the first ‘porch coffee’ last summer, and is centered on the idea that while you can’t create your own “good luck,” you can put yourself out there for luck to find you. The more people you meet, the more likely you are to have an exchange that inspires or helps you, in some way. Cate puts it this way:

It sounds stupidly simple, but it’s profound: the more times you interact with the outside world, the more chances you have to get lucky — to find the collaborators, friends, and projects that, together, provide the right soil for you to bloom in.

Since January, I’ve swung by the porch most weeks and have been amazed by the ways in which the chance meetings have already influenced my life. In the past month, I met the manager of a space that sounds perfect for in-person Morning Person events, joined the crew putting together a puppet show this summer, got connected to the woman I hired as my book coach, made friends, and met creatives who have inspired me in myriad ways. Of course, hosting a “porch coffee” is just one way of “increasing your surface area for luck” and, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I feel my most inspired and alive when I’m living my life in this way. As an experiment, I spent all of last week living according to this mantra, and came away feeling creatively super-charged.

Read on for low- to high-effort ideas for increasing your surface area for luck, and real examples from last week:

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

I have so many recs to share with you this week, but first a quick life update…

Earlier this week, I asked for your thoughts on whether you feel it would be worth it for me to move for a better neighborhood but less-nice house, and you passionately made your cases in favor of neighborhood! It was genuinely so helpful to read through your comments, and we made things official: I’ll be moving end of July to my dream neighborhood in Portland! The anxiety around moving is already starting to hit, but I’m dedicated to making this my most organized move yet, and sharing my tips with you.

It honestly feels like perfect timing that I’m heading back out in the van in a few days, to step away from over-thinking (How does one move a Peloton Treadmill?) and get some good time with friends and in nature. More to come! Until then, read on for…

• 6 tips to avoid buying shit you don’t need (and the foolproof outfit you already have in your closet)

• The first tv show I’ve been tempted to binge in a long time

• A foolproof tool for poaching eggs

• Chickpeas al limone (!)

P.S. I just wrapped up the Fountain Winter Intensive for novel-writing, and genuinely can’t recommend it more highly. It fully jumpstarted the book I’ve been working on, and they’re starting the summer cohort soon! They recently emailed to say we can share the code SUMMER with friends for 15% off, and said I can pass it along to you if you’re interested (I know there are a lot of writers here!). x

Wild Rose Ghee. I’m on a major kick this week (but also, consistently for the past fifteen years) and her recent Strategist interview included a love letter to ghee that made me laugh, it felt so recognizable, “Because ghee is used in Ayurvedic medicine, it felt sort of healthy, and my boyfriend had to be like, ‘You know you’re eating straight butter.’” I feel like I need her, and you, to know about my favorite small-batch ghee, from Wild Rose. It is expensive, and I’m going to try my hand at making my own as soon as I’m out, but I can’t tell you how much I’ve been enjoying this golden ghee, which contains so much turmeric, it paints my toast completely orange. Dying to try this one next, for research…

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My friend Alice was about to move in with her boyfriend and debating between two apartments when she texted our group chat for our advice. The first listing she sent was gorgeous—a three-bedroom with ample space and a fireplace, but a ten-plus-minute drive from some of her favorite spots in Atlanta. The second was slightly smaller, with two bedrooms, but right on the Beltline, in one of her favorite neighborhoods. It took me about two seconds to text back, urging her to opt for the better neighborhood.

I hadn’t spent a lot of time in my current neighborhood when I came across the listing for my house three years ago. It was well outside of the circumference I had been centering my search in, but I began to push aside my concerns the moment I stepped inside. Sure, the neighborhood was less-than ideal, but I felt transported and safe in the welcoming living room. Everywhere I looked, I saw evidence of the care the previous owners had poured into it: the clementine tiles lining a closet floor, the Japanese maple and fig tree in the back, the beautiful, open shelving in the kitchen. It felt like a place in which I could rebuild my life post-divorce, and I wasted little time creating a space I adore, adding to the garden, and buying furniture for my colorful living room and bright bedroom. As time went on, however, it became harder for me to feel excited about the neighborhood…

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend

I love how completely chaotic the weather in Portland was this week, like Mother Nature was trying to hurry up and get to summer but couldn’t quite decide what to wear before running out the door. In the midst of a sunny walk, I heard a crack of thunder and about ten seconds later found myself in a complete downpour; on another morning, I went to collect kale from my garden and found the beds filled with hail. Yesterday, I left the house in a down jacket for what I thought would be a chilly morning walk around Mt. Tabor, but ended up stripping down to my tank top and spending hours basking in the sun with Toast and my boyfriend.

While on our walk, C and I kept talking about all the books, shows, and movies we’re excited to dive into this spring and I thought it might be fun to share my own list with you here! Would love to know what’s on yours! x

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There’s a tangle of bare branches at the end of my neighbor’s driveway that I spent weeks going out of my way to walk past. Each day, I rounded the corner of our block, my anticipation heightened by each budding bush and tree I passed on my way—daphnes first, then cherry blossoms, followed by wisteria. Finally, overnight, the tight lilac blossoms exploded, releasing their intense, powdery perfume.

The timing felt uncanny, given the recent progress I’ve made on the novel I’m working on. After months—years, really—of dormancy, when I could barely write a word of fiction, it feels like everything is suddenly coming together at once. My outline is fleshed out and the moleskine where I’m handwriting my first draft is half-filled with messy paragraphs; arrows connect ideas and dialogue that keep coming to me.

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The Sunday Edition is Tuesday’s little sister—off-the-cuff updates I’d bring up over a coffee catch-up with a friend.

I’ve had a lot of irons on the fire recently, across my creative, personal, and professional lives, and it felt like everything started to click (solder?) into place by the end of this week. It felt so good to see things finally begin to come to fruition, but it also means that my to-do list has exploded. I know, from past experience, that to-dos can dampen my creative spark, so this week I made an effort to notice and collect moments of inspiration, from the food I ate to the clothes I wore, and the culture I consumed. Read on for 13+ things that sparked joy and inspiration this week, including:

• My latest hyper-fixation meal and a magazine I read cover-to-cover

• Springtime playlists and new music I’ve been loooving

• A mind-expanding new book

• My new favorite pan, flowers, and so much more (it’s packed!!)

Casual, meandering hangs with friends. I’ve been a really big fan lately of heading to friends’ houses, or meeting up at a park, with no specific destination in mind. On Friday, I met a friend at Laurelhurst Park, and we eventually strolled over to Navarre for dinner. On Saturday morning, I headed to a friend’s and we tried to stop by Pip’s Bagels (basically the new Courage Bagels of Portland) but the line was literally three blocks long by 9 AM, so we drove over to Tabor Bread, then spent the morning hanging at her house. Bringing more of this spontaneous, casual energy into the summer!

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It came as a surprise to me when I realized that… I don’t have the best time management skills. In the same way I can enter a flow state and get so much done in a short amount of time, I can just as easily let an entire afternoon slip by as I toggle between tabs and open my email for the thousandth time. What ends up happening is, more often than not, I pay for it at the end of the week, and spend my weekends catching up on all the work and myriad to-dos I didn’t get to.

Over the past few months, I’ve developed a strategy for myself I’m calling ‘schedule blocking’ that has completely changed the way I work and approach each day, helping me pace myself and focus so that I can work efficiently and have more time for rest. The idea is to map out a schedule in your calendar, as scaffolding for a daily routine. Here’s how I created mine:

• Begin with priorities. I began by writing a list of everything I have to do in a day, like work on Morning Person, answer emails, work on my book, eat lunch, workout, etc. Then, I made a list of things that are important to me, like slow mornings, long meals, a midday walk. I estimated how much time each “task” should take me, and created blocks—two hours for writing, an hour for lunch, etc.

• Map onto your day. From there, I arranged the blocks into a schedule I felt made sense, giving equal weight to both my responsibilities and things that are personally important to me. (I found it easiest to use my Google Calendar for this!).

• Rearrange until you find your fit. For a few weeks, I tried different schedule combinations. For example, I worked out at lunchtime, until I found it really pulled me out of my work flow and took too much time in the middle of the day, so I bumped it to the end of the day.

• Add in flex days. While Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday are always the same, I try to schedule all of my meetings and appointments on Wednesday and Friday afternoons, to block them together.

• Remember it’s just a scaffolding. While I follow it most days, I also listen to my body and my needs. If I’m in a great writing groove, I keep going with it; or, if I need to get out of the house, I go for a walk. It’s there to support, not punish.

When I wrote about ‘schedule blocking’ last month, it became my most-read post in March, so I figured I would go into more detail here, with a ‘day in the life’ so you can see how it looks on a fairly average day!

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