In today’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah interviews Laura Mae Martin about her new book, Uptime, and about her work as Google’s in-house productivity expert. She shares tips and strategies for staying productive. They chat meetings, setting priorities, task and calendar management, family life, and more.

In the Q&A we tackle a tricky question from a listener who wonders how to balance vacations with nuclear family vs. extended family requests. If you’ve only got limited PTO, how should you split it between regular family vacations and trips to visit relatives?

Please give the episode a listen. As always we welcome ratings and reviews! You can also come join our Patreon community where we discuss topics related to work and life more at length. Recent threads have included one on career change and one on marathon training. We’re having a lot of fun and would love to see you there! Membership is $9/month.

Cousins Maine Lobster. My 12-year-old and I have been stalking the Cousins Maine Lobster truck that comes to a mall parking lot 20 minutes from us every few weeks. So imagine how thrilled we were to find an outpost — an actual restaurant, which couldn’t disappear! — in Asbury Park. We wound up eating lobster rolls three times. I also developed a taste for their Maine Root blueberry soda. A lovely thing to sip while walking down the boardwalk.

Days Ice Cream. A family tradition now. Someone from our crew went every single night. They had a reasonable number of dairy free ice creams, and they weren’t bad. I almost forgot I was eating ice cream made out of oats…

The Silverball Arcade. There were red flags on the water for two days. We did go in up to our knees on those days but the morning it was also chilly we decided to skip the beach to head to this pinball arcade on the Asbury Park boardwalk. The 12-year-old set a new “Under 13” record twice on one machine. He set the record and then beat it himself. (He was offended when I mused that perhaps this was an underplayed machine…)

Having four sea-worthy children. The 7-year-old has really stepped up his swimming game and was able to keep his own in the waves. So I was able to mostly focus my attention on the 2-year-old, who is much less of a daredevil. This made beach trips marginally more relaxing. With five kids I will take what I can get!

Boardwalk runs. My husband and I are training for a half-marathon in September, so we both needed to get some long runs in. I ran three times in the morning. Twice I did 60 minute runs, and then on Friday morning I ran 9.7 miles. I guess I should have gone the full 10 but that’s when I looped back to the house and it was getting hot and I felt done. Running 9.7 miles isn’t bad, though, right? It was beautiful to see the sand and the water and do a little people watching.

Family dinners on the porch. The house we rent has a huge front porch with a giant table. So we ate dinner there every night, enjoying the view of the water.

One on one walks with the kids. The beach and the town and the boardwalk present lots of walking opportunities. I particularly enjoyed chatting with the 15-year-old on the pier at night.

Sleeping with the windows open. The house has air conditioning, but we were able to sleep most nights with the windows open. Feeling the ocean breeze and occasionally waking up to see the sunrise over the ocean was such a treat, as was going back to sleep after 6 a.m.! The toddler mostly cooperated on the sleep front, including taking naps. He was in his own room this year and we all slept better.

Potty training. Speaking of the toddler…I packed a lot of wipes and then only needed to use them once. He is really figuring it out!

Buying a copy of the NY Times with my column in it. I wrote about working on vacation. And yep, did some work on vacation. Probably about an hour a day. I feel less like I’m coming back to a mess.

The kids getting to play card games…without me having to play them. My mother-in-law came with us and she is such a trooper — playing Hearts or Five Crowns with the big kids every night after I put the toddler to sleep. I used the time to read and relax.

Now I’m looking forward to hopefully going back next year! We like to travel lots of different places but it is fun to come back to the same one again and again too.

Longtime readers (and podcast listeners) know that my husband planned this trip. I planned the summer camp schedule; he planned the summer vacation. This came together fairly last minute (in May). We chatted with the kids and learned that they wanted to do a resort. I said it needed to be a direct flight, and my preference was to not travel internationally, given all the Covid testing rigamarole for international travel — though that was dropped in early June. All this is ironic since it turned out the U.S. Virgin Islands still had a testing protocol for everyone until early June as well, including US visitors, so choosing a “domestic” destination didn’t matter on that front (though fortunately that was dropped by the time we went), AND we turned out to sort of need our passports (you go through customs at the St. Thomas airport on the return flight to the mainland — apparently you don’t absolutely need a passport but it goes fastest with something showing citizenship, and how often do you travel with your children’s birth certificates?).

My husband searched the usual spots. We’d had the Westin St. John on our radar for a while but it was always booked up. But then, lo and behold, when he searched in early May, there was a 3-bedroom villa available for our dates. So we took it. The price was actually reasonable vs. many of the other resorts and there was a direct flight from Newark to St. Thomas with seats for 8 people (our nanny came with us, which was good since it turned out the kids club was mostly closed). Ferry service from St. Thomas to St. John is fairly frequent.

Anyway, we had a good time. There were some rough moments. Flying with a toddler is painful. I wound up nursing him for reasonable chunks of both flights, and he would then sleep while half-nursing. Perhaps the AAP should have included this in their recent guidelines about breastfeeding for two years — forget the nutrition, it’s about making plane flights bearable for your fellow passengers…He also slept in a crib in the room with my husband and me and the close quarters didn’t make for great sleep, though it was better than last summer during our resort trip when the longest stretch of sleep I got for the entire week was 3 hours. No kids got sick, which is great, but my husband got an ear infection from diving and wound up experiencing the finest of St. John’s urgent care facilities. We all got sunburned (except the toddler) despite our best efforts.

My goal (from the Summer Fun List) was to have at a few enjoyable moments, and that definitely happened. We did some great snorkeling — I liked Trunk Bay in particular (we rented a Jeep and my husband braved island driving — on the left side — to bring us to a few cool beaches). We rented a sail boat for a day. My husband and I went on a sunset cruise and saw a double rainbow over St. John. The certified divers in our group did several dives. I went on a night kayak trip with my oldest kid and we saw tons of tarpons under our clear-bottom boat. My husband and I ate dinner at Zozo’s, which is a cool beach front restaurant in the remains of a resort that was mostly destroyed in the double hurricanes a few years ago. That was an experience — parking, and having the shuttle take you through the ruins, which are crawling with deer. I enjoyed the Westin’s frozen margaritas and my kids really got into their smoothies sipped pool side. I read for 30 minutes on the beach hammock one afternoon. I developed a taste for the resort deli’s curry chicken salad sandwiches.

The trip home was long, but we made it, getting back to the house at 12:10 a.m. early Sunday morning. Then my husband and oldest kid left at 9 a.m. to go to the airport to get a flight to camp. Fortunately, we’d packed one duffle full of the dorm stuff before we left on vacation, and did the 15-year-old’s laundry in our villa, so we just had to add a few more cooler-weather items and he was ready to go. He seems to be enjoying himself. I was on a flight to Las Vegas that evening. Flying business class, solo, is a very different experience than flying in economy with a toddler!

In other news: Speaking of vacation, my Medium column this week looks at “The Question that Reveals if a Habit is Right for You.” Namely, would you do this habit on vacation? I did read my Shakespeare! I did not try to run five miles daily or anything like that. One habit is sustainable in my life and one just…isn’t.

Photo: Turquoise waters…I don’t know who this person is floating in the water but this was the closest I could get to a no-people shot…

But I am happy to report that, despite what you might hear in an upcoming podcast episode, this changed this weekend. My husband huddled down with his laptop on Saturday afternoon during my time with the toddler (we built and knocked down approximately 187 block towers). In a stroke of luck, something opened up at a place where we’d tried to book in the past, but it had always been sold out. Perhaps some other family who makes plans far in advance canceled? That would be ironic. But in any case, we scored a last minute reservation in a place that can fit us for what I consider a reasonable price. Plus, he used some of his millions* of United miles to get our plane tickets.

During the time my husband had the toddler I mostly worked on unpacking/decluttering the 7-year-old’s room (while half supervising a double playdate for the 12- and 10-year-olds but pre-teens don’t really need or want much supervision). I’m down to two plastic bins that need to be sorted, and his dresser contains clothes that fit him, and only him, so this is an improvement. Once I consider his room mostly done, I’ll move on to my daughter’s room and help her get rid of some stuff. Then the 14-year-old.

(Who is almost 15!! Oh my goodness.)

Now on to the TBT Scorecard. Some folks have asked and yes, there should be a printable type scorecard available when the Tranquility by Tuesday book comes out. I’ve found it’s easy to rate myself on the TBT rules because I track my time. I can just print out my time log and see where the time went. Yet another reason to track time if you don’t already.

Bedtime: Pretty much a 100%. I was in my bed by 11 p.m. every night this week, though I didn’t turn off the lights until 11:15 on Friday and Saturday nights. Since I didn’t need to wake up until 7:30 both of the next mornings, I allowed for an extra 15 minutes of scrolling (yep). Unfortunately, I did spend the week working off a sleep debt from Tuesday night when I was up from a little after midnight until 2 a.m. with the toddler. So no bounding out of bed at 6:30 a.m. on the weekends.

I planned on Fridays as always. I did some physical activity (walk or run) before 3 p.m. all seven days.

For my “three times a week is a habit” rule, I’ve been focusing on a few activities. I want to run at least three times, play the piano at least three times, sing three times, and have three family meals. This week went pretty well on those fronts. I ran four times (M, W, F, Sun). I practiced piano for at least 15-20 minutes on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday — an enterprise aided by ordering a new book of Bach inventions (I can’t find my old one; see unpacking/decluttering above). We ate dinner together as a family five out of the seven nights. That’s going to be a high-water mark for the next few weeks. I sang twice — choir practice on Thursday and then Sunday morning. My goal this week is to build in another singing practice session.

I always leave Friday pretty open, so that was my back-up slot (Rule #5). While I didn’t have any huge adventures this week, I did do a few medium sized ones. On Thursday I went to Chanticleer, a “pleasure garden” designed by Thomas Sears that’s about 20 minutes from my house. It was absolutely beautiful in full May bloom. I also did “train with Mom” for karate class for two children on Saturday morning. The children learned that Mom has the ability to punch and kick bags quite hard. I also worked out at the YMCA weight room for the first time since the pandemic. All of those things were memorable and out of the ordinary.

(Mom has been realizing that her core strength took a hit with baby #5 and the subsequent weakness is resulting in lower back pain and IT band issues. This is a definite goal to build back up.)

Choir practice on Thursday ensures I “take one night for you” (Rule 7). I “batched the little things” on Friday with my Friday punch list: paying bills, buying odds and ends, etc. The “effortful before effortless” quest is ongoing, though I realized that in the morning if I have time in between kid breakfasts/needs, I can do some of my Shakespeare reading for that project. This morning I read a few of his sonnets. I also read a magazine on Friday night while I had some down time instead of scrolling. I haven’t done any puzzles since moving into the new house, but maybe I’ll start. I did do a few post-dinner walks to clear my head and get in the headspace for bedtime.

Now this reminds me that I need to think through some adventures for this week. I don’t really have anything planned!

*Not kidding, though this number has been in a holding pattern the last two years. I am worried that is about to change…

Photo: Sunset walk in the woods