My Jenn-eration

Each night, away from the din of 24 feeds and news cycles and the idle chatter that surrounds us, my husband and I are working to rediscover some piece of the sacred and not yet lost art of communicating with each other without interruption. For a while now we have been trying to enforce a pretty simple rule we established for each other: no phones in the bedroom. There is all kinds of science and data that reinforce why this makes sense in terms of falling and landing in a generally more substantial and satisfying mode of REM. But even if we didn’t know about all of those studies there are all of the more obvious reasons why we should: because even if we silence all notifications it is nearly impossible to resist the lure of possible work emails, because it is a rabbit hole time suck, or because it inevitably places me in the same physical space with my husband even though he and I are mentally in vastly different circles with at least 400-1000 of our not so closest friends par...

How does the saying go? The days are long but the years are short. As a parent, my relationship with time has never been so complicated. But increasingly I am shifting my thinking to focus less on the minutes and more on me. How can I make small yet meaningful investments in my own physical and emotional well-being that will give me greater capacity to face each day? I hope you’ll have a listen to this podcast where I was so excited to have the opportunity to discuss this with Real Simple editor Lori Leibovich and time management expert Laura Vanderkam.

Perhaps the question was never, “Am I ahead or behind?” but rather, “How am I?” I hope you’ll come join me over at The Washington Post where I’m musing on how to make the most out of each day. So how do you manage your clock?

A few weeks ago I was sort of lurking behind the scenes in one of those Facebook groups created to share business referrals within my suburban town. A homeowner was having a horrendous problem with her lawn. Could anyone recommend a landscaper? Someone who could finally rid her of those unsightly weeds? In response, she received plenty of referrals of places to call from other home owners, but there was one comment buried within the midst of all the others that stood out. “I wish people would stop making their lawns so pretty. Those damn fertilizers are chasing everything away. We used to have butterflies in this town. We used to have ugly lawns and butterflies. Now we just have nice lawns.” This morning I woke up and I looked out at my perfectly nice lawn and turned on the news. More people are dead. They didn’t have to tell me anything about the shooter. I expected I already knew exactly what he was like. He was young. And angry and isolated. Here we are again. 1 shooter. ...