planning party TODAY! join us! 🥳️
register to join us at 2pm EST today on zoom! plus some seasonal thoughts on aligning our values and how we spend our time
Hello!! It is so very nearly 2026, and I am ready to go. I’ve got my new planner open to January, since the new month and year start this week. I am mapping out some new projects, and dreaming of a big new year’s decluttering later this week. (Anyone else? As soon as the holiday decorations get put away, I get the urge to fill my trunk with anything we haven’t used in the last six months and drive it all to Goodwill.)
🥳️ But today, we plan! 🥳️
This afternoon, at 2pm EST, I’ll be joined by planning guru Sarah Hart-Unger for a zoom planning party. Sarah has a brand-new book, Best Laid Plans, that’s full of tips and wisdom for making space for what matters to you in a busy life. What I love about her book is how it takes into account that we all have busy, messy lives and big dreams—and she argues that devoting regular time to planning is the key to spending our time on the things that matter to us.
If you’ve got big dreams for your creative life in the year ahead, join us today and spend one hour planning how you’ll make it happen.
Register here to get the zoom link. (I’ll send out the recording and some written highlights afterward, if this time doesn’t work for you—just make sure you’re subscribed!) Zoom workshops are normally a perk for paid subscribers, but in the spirit of the spark of new year energy, this one is free and open to all!
If you want the slightly longer pitch for why planning is actually essential to caring for your creative spark, you can find that here:
We went on a cruise this year for Christmas, and the best part of it—other than the sunshine and not even thinking about making a meal for a full week—is that there’s no internet on a cruise ship. (Actually, there is, but you have to pay for it, and I was not about to pay to be tethered to the outside world.) We sailed out of north Jersey, and two days in, when we docked in Florida, my phone connected to service. I checked my email, opened up instagram, immediately felt a little bad and anxious and thought, is this how I feel all the time? what am I doing?
I’ve got all kinds of practices for minimizing the time I spend on my phone, but it’s been a big year of book promotion and living on the internet, and I had no idea how much I needed that hard reset. It was really startling to be reminded of how my brain feels without the constant interruption of notifications and dopamine seeking of checking across all the platforms. I’m still working out how to hold on to that clarity, but for right now, my major point of reflection is about spending my time and attention in the ways that matter to me. (My guiding light for thinking about time and attention is Jenny Odell, and I wrote about how her work has shaped my creative practice for Electric Literature.)
For now, I’m trying to think really practically about time and attention: what does it look like to actually put the things that matter on your calendar? how can I reflect deliberately on what I’m doing with my time each day and if it’s moving me in the direction I want to go? I’m asking not in a hustle culture, make-the-most-of-every-second way, but more like: is this actually what matters to me? Am I devoting my time and attention to the things that feel meaningful?
I’ll share some practical ideas and things I’m trying in today’s planning party—and I’m also going to try to nudge Sarah into helping me problem solve.
previously, on figuring out what matters
So if you want a little question to carry with you as the new year starts, I’d suggest that one: what matters to you? Not what you have to do, or what you should do, but what matters?
If this newsletter has helped you in your creative life, you can support me by sharing it online or with a friend, or by ordering my new book, The Good Mother Myth.
