Of course, not everyone is a morning person! Longtime listeners of the Best of Both Worlds podcast know that Sarah has an elaborate morning routine that starts around 4:45 a.m. I…do not. But whether you’re like Sarah or me (or something in between), it’s helpful to think through your mornings, and take steps to start the day right.

In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, we discuss our AM routines, plus the variations for weekends and other scenarios. We discuss some common morning challenges, such as early waking babies or super-early Zoom meetings, and how these can be taken in stride.

In the Q&A we answer a listener question on transitions — what’s the best way to handle the long transition times that inevitably occur with multiple young kids? Getting three kids into car seats definitely takes time!

Please give the episode a listen, and as always, we welcome ratings and reviews. Listener note: The “E” rating we suddenly got is a total mistake — this is being changed through Apple podcasts. Best of Both Worlds has and always has been “clean” — no explicit language or content you could not listen to with a child in the car. This should be rectified shortly

Today’s episode covers lots of different topics. A listener asks how to streamline things during a very busy season (I recommend time tracking — shout out to anyone doing this week’s time tracking challenge!). Another listener asks about choosing activities for young kids. A listener asks if either of us ever considered being a stay-at-home mom, because she’s worried about regretting not being home with the kids when they’re little. A listener asks about whether we still do any tasks rather than outsourcing them, because we enjoy them — I think we had a nice and diplomatic answer to that question!

Anyway, please give the episode a listen, and we welcome ratings and reviews. If you’d like to discuss these topics more in depth with other people combining work and life, please consider joining our Patreon community. We have 3-4 discussion threads going per week, often with 20-30+ comments. It’s a great alternative to social media! Membership is $9/month.

In this week’s episode of Best of Both Worlds, Sarah and I share highlights from 2023. We look back at the goals we set for the year and we talk about whether we achieved those goals or whether we needed to pivot (spoiler alert: some worked better than others!). In general, it was an awesome year, for both of us individually and for the show. We are grateful for that!

If you are reading this post before noon, eastern, there is still time to join our Patreon community before our annual goal-setting workshop. Every year, Sarah leads an hour-long session on Zoom where we brainstorm goals for the year and spend some time figuring out which we might commit to. It’s like a mini-version of her Best Laid Plans Academy. We’ll be gathering at noon, eastern, today (12/12). The zoom link is posted on our Patreon page. Membership is $9/month. Of course if you are reading this after noon, we’d still love to have you! The session is recorded and can definitely be done on your own after the fact. Hope to see you there!

In the meantime, what were your 2023 highlights? Some of mine (mentioned in this week’s episode) were seeing Taylor Swift in concert (apparently she trained for it by singing her whole set list while running on the treadmill – wow!), biking in Norway, and re-reading The Cortlandt Boys for the first time in 6 years (and liking it). We’ll share our goals for 2024 in an upcoming episode!

We start off with a discussion of my family’s recent trip to Norway (where the fall weather had already started in late August/early September). Then we talk about our fall favorite items and concepts in several categories, from food to fashion.

Please give the episode a listen, and as always we welcome ratings and reviews!

If you enjoy Best of Both Worlds, and you’d like to become part of a community around the show, please consider if you might like to join our Patreon community. We do monthly meet-ups by Zoom. The most recent covered time tracking, and next month will be a childcare workshop (what works best in which situations). We also have several discussion threads going per week on our community page. The most recent question — are your kids allowed to eat in your car? Quite the split on that one! Membership is $9/month. Hope to see you there.