Jessica's Friday Five: quick question - got any life hacks for me?
Published 16 days ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader,
This issue of Friday Five was written many days ago before I headed to a camp near a lake in the woods in Michigan where I'm facilitating a little as a counselor and hopefully getting in some fun and rest and reflection time as well. When I come back, I'd love to have replies from you all - do you have any sort of life hacks or tips that really help you that would make a good tip for the Friday Five community? Let me know! I love hearing from you.
Spend more time with your friends: Before you continue reading this newsletter, could you pause and send a message like one of these to someone you'd like to see soon? I would love to have coffee next month, is there a morning that works for you? I'm doing errands on Sunday afternoon, wanna join me and get yours done too? When do your kids have soccer - would that be a good time for me to come by so we can catch up at the field? I'm meal prepping on Sunday - wanna join me and do yours too? I'm going to X on this date, would you like to join?
We do this 2x a week: We are in the thick of a busy season in our family, and gosh, I'm glad that about a year ago someone suggested to me that we try Cook Unity. We had been doing one of those meal kits that send you ingredients with a recipe, and we loved that for years! But Cook Unity is already fully made by chefs and you just heat it up. It has a lot less packaging waste than the meal kits, and it's been SO SO SO nice to have a very easy and tasty meal 2 nights a week. My dad lives alone and he gets Cook Unity too and loves it after trying it at our house. We get 6 meals (3 each of 2 different meals) per week and that serves our family of 4 just fine. It also adds variety to our meals, which is so nice (because listen, we had lobster curry last week and let me tell how that's 0% likely to be a meal we'd ever have at home on a random Tuesday if it weren't for Cook Unity). You pick your meals so you can make sure it'll be a good fit for your family - and I can wholeheartedly recommend the chicken enchiladas, the naan pizza, and the pulled pork sandwiches if you need a place to start. Use my friend code for $50 off if you try it!
Something easy and good to do: If you're not already registered on the national bone marrow registry, it's such an easy process to do and could save lives. In a time when folks are starving and enduring war across the world and democracy is at risk, it can be so easy to feel hopeless. But hope is indeed a choice, and doing one next right thing is all we can do sometimes. The next right thing can be spending 5 minutes signing up here if you're between the ages of 18 and 40 - it involves a simple swab of your cheek that they send you in the mail and if you ever match with someone, they'll contact you to see if you're willing and able to donate bone marrow at that time. If you're over 40, sign up instead for a blood donation appointment.
Google form notifications: If you use Google Forms to collect information in your work or personal life, did you know that you can sign up for email notifications when the form is completed? This can be so helpful, especially for evergreen forms that might only be completed occasionally. Connect the form results to a spreadsheet, then go to the Tools menu, "Notifications," and you can set up email notifications at a few different frequency options based on your needs.
Where do babies sleep while traveling? I was interviewed for this article at Mom.com about where babies can sleep while traveling. We have tried a ton of different strategies over the years (my kids are now much older than babies!), including buying and then donating low-cost sleep gear in our travel location and even renting cribs when that was an option. If you're in the baby phase or know someone who is, you might get some good ideas in the full article.
Bonus Sponsor Resource: BevLedge. I've owned this for two years and take it on every flight I go on - it always comes in so handy, and every time the nearby passengers ask me where I bought it. It gives you more space to hold a drink, headphones, your phone, or whatever little items you need a place to set down. It folds down super small, so it just lives in my carry-on for every trip. This resource is from one of our Friday Five sponsors - thank you to them for keeping this newsletter free for readers!
Last Friday's Most-Clicked Link:The Agenda Hero Chrome extension - I use this multiple times a week, so I'm not surprised so many of you are interested too! It turns a screenshot, a PDF, or pasted text into calendar invites.
