Tinkering With Ideas #043: Good livin'


Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 -

Happy Friday. It's the tail-end of a holiday week here in the U.S. I took the week off from client work and did some traveling with my fam.

Taking part of next week off also. No matter if you work for an employer or work for yourself, I highly recommend giving yourself at least one "recovery day" to get caught up on life stuff before resuming work.

This week, I have something a bit different for the newsletter. I started writing down a bunch of tips for travel / summer and couldn't narrow it down into my regular newsletter format! So rather than save the ideas for future issues, I'm giving you the whole list.

Enjoy!

  1. If you're ever visiting the state of Wisconsin in the U.S., I highly recommend a Wisconsin Ducks tour in the Wisconsin Dells. Stunning tour and amazing tour guides.
  2. If you get a bee sting, mix baking soda with a little bit of water to form a paste and put it on the sting. It works wonders.
  3. I have a lot of tattoos and recently discovered Mad Rabbit tattoo products. I bought the Defend Tattoo Sunscreen (and then also ended up with the Enhance Tattoo Balm).
  4. I'm not great at taking care of my yard, but I've had good luck with Sunday Lawn Care products, especially Dandelion Doom and Weed Warrior.
  5. I ended up with a summer sinus infection last week (yuck). But my neti pot came to the rescue. Someone on Threads called it "fractional drowning" and that feels about right - but it works. I think my sinus infection would have been a lot worse otherwise.
  6. Whenever I travel with my family, we bring clipboards with printed itineraries. Here's how it helps keep my kids chill.
  7. Until very recently, our suitcases were a free-for-all when we traveled. But before a big trip last year, I bought organizing cubes. Makes life in a hotel room with five people a lot easier.
  8. I travel with a weighted blanket (yup) and a Hug Sleep Pod to make sleeping easier. On this last trip, my 12-year-old borrowed the Hug Sleep Pod and loved it, so I'll be getting him his own.
  9. Ear Candy: Fantasia Barrino won American Idol in 2004, and I still think about her performance of Summertime.
  10. I'm obsessed with the musical Hamilton and it's become my 4th of July tradition to watch it on Disney+. If you haven't seen the show, go watch it RIGHT NOW!

​

That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Anna

​


Want more ideas?

→ I talk about repurposing my LinkedIn posts to Threads in this video.

→ A few more things to read and listen to in this list.

​

That's it for this issue of Tinkering! See you again in two weeks.

Cheers,
Anna


PS: If you like this newsletter and want to support it, here's what you can do!

1) Forward this newsletter to a friend. Sharing is caring.
2)
Sponsor this newsletter and feature your product or service.
3)
Buy me a coffee and fuel my writing habit.
4)
Hire me for coaching.

This newsletter may contain affiliate links, which means if you sign up, subscribe, buy, whatever, I earn a small amount.

Anna Burgess Yang

Practical tips to make your day better & make your life easier.

Read more from Anna Burgess Yang
a whimsical illustration of a light bulb

Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 Happy Wednesday. This is the first whole issue I've written FROM SCRATCH since my brain surgery in July. I'm so grateful to the people who contributed guest content to keep this newsletter running while I recovered. I'm mostly back to my regular self. I still have some lingering facial paralysis, but my dimple is slowly reappearing in my left cheek when I smile. I also have double vision, which is corrected by covering my left eye with an eye patch (I'm a pirate!) The...

a whimsical illustration of a light bulb

Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 Happy Wednesday. This week's newsletter comes from Kyle Rinker, an email copywriter and strategist for SaaS brands. Kyle and I met through a mutual friend and I'm grateful that he was willing to contribute to my newsletter while I recover from brain surgery. Want brain surgery updates? You can check out my blog. Here are a reflection, product, and tip from Kyle: 1) Reflection: After being laid off last winter from my long-held SEO specialist role, I took stock of...

a whimsical illustration of a light bulb

Hello, fellow tinkerer 👋 Happy Wednesday. Yet another pre-scheduled newsletter while I recover from brain surgery. Although the reason sucks, it was kind of nice to sit down and prep a bunch of newsletters in one sitting. Maybe I should do that on purpose in the future! 1) Reflection: A lot of my content wasn't a big deal to pre-write and pre-schedule. It's not time sensitive (other than landing in someone's inbox). But it was important to me to post updates to my blog throughout my recovery....