Of course, as we hit the last 100 days of the year, this means I’m nearing completion of this year-long project. Which leads to the question…what should I do next?

In 2021, I read War and Peace at the rate of one chapter a day. In 2022 I read all the works of Shakespeare (at a pace of about 3-4 pages with small type per day). In 2023 I read all the works of Jane Austen (at a pace of about 10 pages per day – I finished in September since it turned out I miscalculated on this one). And this past year I’ve been listening to approximately 30 minutes of Bach daily.

Whatever I choose for 2025 needs to fit a few criteria:

*It needs to be worth doing (as I believe all the previous projects have been!). I want to read or listen to work that is generally seen as classic and important.

*I need to be excited about it (I’m just not that into Mozart…sorry!).

*It also needs to be doable. Some people’s lifetime works might actually take more than a year to consume at a sustainable pace. I can probably read for about 20 minutes a day. Listening is a little easier to do more since I can have it running in the background (like in the car). Obviously there is some ambiguity here as I could have listened to performances of Shakespeare’s plays but…anyway.

So, I welcome suggestions! You can post or can always email me (laura at lauravanderkam dot com). My timeline for a decision is the Best Laid Plans Live retreat in early November, as I try to have a rough draft of next year’s goals by then…

In other news: We celebrated my 2nd kid’s birthday this week! He turned 15. After he finished a 5k in a cross country meet, we had his favorite foods for dinner, which included lobster tails, a caprese salad, and mac and cheese. He asked what time exactly he was born, and it turns out it was 10:07 p.m. (per the birth certificate). That reminded me that the same doctor delivered him and his older brother. After kid #2 was born, she congratulated me and told me “I’m so happy I could help you complete your family.” Haha. Of course, this was in NYC where the maternity ward was so crowded (we were 9 months after Christmas…) that the baby and I wound up staying in a room in the urology ward where they posted a guard in front of the door (as there was no other security, as there is in the mother/baby unit). It was like we were famous. Memories! It’s been fun watching him become a runner. He’s definitely faster than his mom.

This year I am aiming to listen to all the works of Bach. By doing a little bit every single day it’s never overwhelming.

Now, into August, it’s kind of amazing how much music I’ve listened to! For instance, I have listened to all 200+ cantatas Bach wrote. I listened to one a day, and we’re 200+ days into the year, so there we go. I also listened to all of his organ works. Many of these were quite short, but still, hundreds of pieces. That took us from BWV 525 to BWV 771.

August is going to be a fantastic listening month. Bach’s famous masses and oratorios are all coming up. My calendar has me starting the B-Minor mass tomorrow. Of course I’ve listened to this work dozens of times, but it will be cool to do in the context of listening to everything else. I have heard snippets of the B-Minor mass in lots of the cantatas that Bach wrote before it. Just because of the way I structured this listening I’ll also have the Goldberg Variations coming up this month, right after the St. Matthew Passion.

I’m still writing a sonnet a week too. This pace of two lines a day feels quite doable. Here’s a sentimental little one I wrote called “Peaches.” We didn’t wind up picking peaches this year, but oh well…

Remember, now, the walk into the field?
A basket in the hand, the blazing sun…
The orchard waits — what have the trees concealed?
I peer into the branches, first see one

and then another: peaches, plump and ripe.
We twist the stems, so many, stacking high,
as through the leaves the sunshine, in a stripe,
illumines all this flesh. A butterfly

drinks deeply, and we taste this sugar too,
on peaches, and each others’ lips. A while
will pass — and in the grocery store a few
new peaches, stacked, will conjure up a smile.

Remember now, the shade of summers past?
A kiss, that in the taste of peach, can last…

Sometimes, however, you encounter one of those things in life that screws up estimation: randomness. Sometimes a project takes longer than planned for reasons you would not have imagined. Forget traffic during rush hour. We are talking true randomness here — what Donald Rumsfeld would have called “unknown unknowns.”

What do you do? There are a few ways to build in space:

• Set your own due dates prior to real due dates. If all goes well, you can relax. If it doesn’t, you’ve got time.
• Build in floater days to your life. These are light schedule days that can be used to catch up on things or pursue interesting projects… or can be re-deployed to cover the days you’re stuck in bed with the flu, picking up kids from school for an early closure, or realizing that only 1 in 20 prospects is calling you back.
• Have a few available swing shifts. If I don’t finish my work by 6PM, I can spend an hour after the kids go to bed catching up, or two if something truly random is derailing a project. If all is on track, I can read a magazine instead. Nap time on weekends is also a possibility.

All of these build in space, but the most important thing, once the Project From Hell is over, is to analyze what exactly went wrong. You don’t want to spend your life leaving for the airport 3 hours early, based on that one time there was a motorcycle parade blocking the route and you missed your flight. But perhaps there is a lesson — like to check the traffic report a few hours before you plan to leave.

What do you do when projects take longer than planned?