It was the perfect night for stargazing: 55 degrees with clear skies. The Astronomy Club's telescopes were set up along the 50 yard line on the football field and kids from grades K-12 were scattered about. I sat on a blanket with another mom, simultaneously marveling about seeing Saturn's rings and chuckling at our second graders playing tag and rolling around on the turf in between stargazing. Core childhood memories were locked in.

How many times have you set the below out of office message or received it from a colleague or other contact?

"I am out of the office and have limited access to email and voicemail. I will respond to your message after I return to the office on March 25. If you need immediate assistance, please contact John Doe at 123-456-7890 or jdoe@office.com. Thank you."

More times than you can count, right? Well, try this one on for size instead:

"Thank you for your message. I am out of the office and will respond when I return on March 25, 2024."

How many times a day do you check email?

If you work at a desk all day like me, your answer is most likely "constantly" or "as it arrives." But have you ever stopped to think about how often you are actually checking email? The answer might be upwards of dozens of times a day, not to mention responding within minutes of receipt much of the time. Really have a think about it for a moment.

"Your storage is almost full." Google must have sent that message to my main Gmail account* countless times over the last six months or so. The first time I received it, I opened it, read how close I was to the limit and what I'd have to do it fix it, told myself "I don't have time to deal with this," decided to procrastinate fixing it, and deleted the message.

I awoke with a start. I opened my eyes to discover it was really, really dark. I had to think about what day it was, and smiled sleepily when I realized it was Saturday. I thought about going back to sleep, but I was surprisingly alert. I checked my watch. 4:40 a.m. 

It's taken me a very, very long time to realize that the biggest secret to staying productive is... drumroll please... taking breaks. Yep, that's right. You want to do more? Make sure you actually do less. As in, stop working once in awhile. I promise, you'll be more productive -- and avoid burning out.

The Pomodoro Technique is a way to stay productive because it prevents multitasking. I credit this hack for single-handedly turning me into someone who used to be so proud about all she could (allegedly) do at once into a recovering multitasker. 

Now that you've broken down your to-do list into bite-sized pieces of actionable items (sub-tasks) instead of jotting down vague tasks, it's time to get organized and allocate time to complete the items.

What my to-do list used to look like and what it looks like now - and how this change made me more productive!

Um... what happened to September? I am in disbelief. I previously wrote that it was the fastest summer on record and suddenly here we are, looking at pumpkins and Halloween.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I never know when, where, and how inspiration will strike for my weekly newsletter. The only thing that surprised me this week is that it took me this long to write about Target. So here goes.

Dear iPhone, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m just not my best self when you’re around.

The “bare minimum” is “15 pieces of flair,” not 37 — and there’s nothing wrong with doing the bare minimum!

I love writing my newsletter. Suffice it to say, it's a highlight of my week. Sometimes it takes me 25 minutes. Sometimes it takes me an hour. However, I used to have this tiny problem: No matter how long it took, I couldn't leave it alone. I couldn't say, "It's done!" and move on with my life. I'd tinker with it night after night, driving myself nuts over inane things like whether semi-colons are too archaic. (They're not; I love 'em.) 

Did you ever sit down to complete a new or difficult task and think, "Hm. I'm not sure about this, but I can knock it out in an hour." It then takes you almost three hours to finish. You feel frustrated as you remark, "Wow. That took a lot longer than I expected." Why does this happen?!