the most important thing I've been trying to unlearn this year
come share what you've learned, plus help me pick a time for our 🔮 2026 VISION BOARD PARTY 🔮
Hello there! Welcome to Be Less Careful, a newsletter about making space for a creative practice in a busy life.
What a year, friends. I am looking forward to Christmas, and I am looking forward to a fresh start for 2026.
I’ll be hosting another New Year’s planning party with planning guru Sarah Hart-Unger, whose new book Best Laid Plans is out TODAY! We’ll talk about developing a vision for the year ahead, hot planning topics like “word for the year” (I’ll share my spin on that for this year, if you’re interested), and what Sarah calls “Metaplanning”—focusing on your systems. This zoom 🥳️ planning party 🥳️ will be open to all subscribers.
Help us pick a date!
And if you are newish, here’s a recap of our recent vision board parties, including my pitch for making one, even if it feels a little woo:
I got to know Sarah when she invited me to be on the podcast she co-hosts with Laura Vanderkam, if you want to check that out:
the most important thing I’ve unlearned this year
I wrote a whole book about unlearning our bad ideas about how to be a good mom, but it turns out . . . I have more bad ideas left to shed. Buy me a drink sometime (see you at AWP in Baltimore?) and I’ll give you the whole list, but here’s the big one:
rest is great and important . . . for other people
I had a big winter and spring of book events for The Good Mother Myth. It was wonderful, and by the time May rolled around, I was cooked. Like, well and thoroughly fried. I kept making lists of things to do and then just . . . not doing them. I’d open my computer to work on a pitch or revise a draft and come to half an hour later, my eyes a little blurry from scrolling, my mood decidedly worse.
I eventually decided that sitting at my desk in a posture that might be mistaken for work was not in fact more virtuous than just watching TV. So I did that for a little while. I’d knock out whatever absolutely had to be done, then around mid-day I’d cuddle up with lunch and some medium-bad TV. (I watched White Lotus, Sirens, and Your Friends & Neighbors that way.) Do I wish I’d done more in those months? Sure. Do I think I was actually capable of putting my nose right back to the grindstone. I do not, actually. Eventually, a little creative spark came back and the TV stopped calling me quite so loudly.
And the bigger picture of all that has to do with learning to listen to myself—the little voice that says, take a break, sweetie; the even quieter (I’m trying!) voice that says, just log off, babe.
on that note:
🍵 let’s chat: lessons from 2025
I’d love to know: what have you learned this year? or what are you unlearning?
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.
I've had to, gulp, learn to ask for help. As an eldest daughter, this one has been especially difficult but the universe left me no other choice but to embrace this lesson.
With my therapist's help, I am trying to unlearn my habit of waiting for someone to notice what I need. I wait, hoping my husband will notice I need help watering our plants, for instance. He doesn't. I do it all, without asking for help, and my chronic pain worsens as does my mood. I wait, thinking someone will see how physically hard certain tasks have become for me. Those closest to me surely must notice. They'll step up, right? Nope. I have to stop waiting and start speaking - I need you to do this, I need help with that. It's so very hard.