Here’s something that may surprise you, given the tenor of my recent posts: I hate self-help books. I think it’s an industry rife with problematic people and problematic advice, and wading through the crap to get to the useful or interesting nuggets it’s worth my time. [And that’s not a judgment on anyone who feels it’s worth their time.] If something comes across my path that seems interesting, I may take a closer look at it, but I don’t go out of my way to find it, if that makes sense. As a matter of principle, I am skeptical of most self-improvement “hacks”. If they’re not a thinly disguised device for selling some product/service or other, they’re often some combination of self-evident, trite, or vague/generalized to the point of being inactionable.

But there is one exercise I have found immeasurably useful to my personal growth. I hesitate to call it a self-improvement exercise. It’s more about self-discovery than anything else. If you are someone who is currently engaged in finding their purpose, I highly recommend it.

It’s the “perfect day” exercise. And it’s exactly what it sounds.

Imagine your perfect day: what does it look like?

In doing the exercise, set aside all constraints and limitations as to what might be realistic or achievable. Shut out external noise, turn inward, and listen. Do not rush yourself to an answer. It may take a while for a clear picture to emerge. It’s okay if it emerges in bits and pieces. The key thing is for the picture to be yours.

And watch for the “shoulds”. “Shoulds” are almost always someone else’s voice in your head; an internalized cultural/societal dictum. Interrogate them fiercely before you let them anywhere near your perfect day. Personally, I’ve tossed most of the shoulds in my life out of the window. Time’s too precious to waste on things I should do. There are enough things I need to do (practical necessities) and things I want to do (purpose and joy) to fill a lifetime.

It was my experience that the “perfect day” I eventually settled upon looked nothing like the version that, in the past, I probably would have imagined. [The ‘past’ being that part of my life when I was still very much in thrall to “shoulds.”] In one sense, my perfect day was, for lack of a better word, very modest. Quiet. No big thrills, no fancy stuff. It was filled with small pleasures. In another sense, it was very audacious. First, because it was modest – when our society’s motto is “go big or go home.” Second, because it was predicated on experiences that, for the most part, would be considered unproductive within the capitalist paradigm that defines modern existence. Unmonetized creativity, leisure, human connection: these are things capitalism has no use for. Choosing them, in my perfect day, felt like a radical act – a very small one, to be sure, but radical all the same.

You might be wondering what my perfect day actually involved and waiting for me to tell you. I am not going to. Not only because it’s a deeply private and personal thing, but because it doesn’t matter. Not to you. Not even, at a certain level, to me. The goal of the perfect day exercise isn’t to come up with the ideal To Do list or schedule. It is to reveal, to yourself, the things that give life its purpose and meaning – for you.

I wouldn’t get hung up on the specific activities that you end up including in your perfect day. To me, those activities are merely stand-ins for the values or ideals that define the locus of purpose or meaning in one’s life. Look at your perfect day and ask: what are the common themes or threads here? Follow those threads, and you will eventually get to the definition of your purpose.

One way to architect your best life is to take your “perfect day” and expand it out. In other words, in a very literal sense, build a life that allows you to live your perfect day, every day. If you are fortunate enough to be able to do that, congratulations! Enjoy being exceptional 😉 If you are not – and, spoiler alert, most of us aren’t, at least not immediately – don’t worry. You don’t need to live the perfect day, every single day, in order to be living your best life. As far as I’m concerned, our best life is the life that makes room for and honours our purpose. Once we know what that purpose is, it becomes much easier to spot the ways and opportunities to incorporate it into our day-to-day life, tiny bit by tiny bit. You might be surprised by how tiny bits can add up! And those tiny bits can be different from the things that you included in your perfect day exercise – and, nevertheless, effective ways to practice your purpose.

From time to time, you might get the chance to actually live a “perfect day”. Seize it! Do it! It’ll feel wonderfully self-affirming … and if it doesn’t, then you’ll know it’s time to revisit the exercise. In fact, I think it’s good practice to repeat the exercise on a regular basis, at least every year or every other year. We grow, we evolve; it’s good to leave room for our purpose to grow and evolve too.

Now, I would love to hear from you: have you ever planned out your “perfect day” and, if so, what did you come away with from the exercise?

It’s Mercury and Jupiter retrograde, friends – hold on to your everything. The planets be wilding out there. Against common advice, I decided this was a good week to do All The Things. Which is to say, I did a bunch of really important book publishing related stuff. If you’re on the mailing list for my author newsletter, you will have received some exciting updates in your inbox. All I’m going to say here now is: bookmark January 8, 2026 because that is the day when A Party to Murder will be released!

OK, I’m going to say one more thing: the e-book is now available for pre-order (Amazon and other retailers), and I would be eternally grateful if you chose to support me by pre-ordering in advance of Jan 8. Pre-orders are hugely important to the ranking that new books get on release on platforms like Amazon, which in turn impacts the algorithms that determine how broadly the book gets pushed out to other customers. Basically, the more successful Amazon’s algorithm thinks your book is, the more it shows it to other people. (A Party to Murder is available on a number of different online retailers’ platforms, so there are options for people who don’t want to support Amazon).

In other news, this week I fell down an Instagram rabbit hole of Frankenstein-related content. I am talking, of course, about Guillermo del Toro’s new movie. I haven’t seen it, and I’m not sure I want to – I’ve heard it focuses on an exploration of parent-child and intergenerational trauma, and that’s just too heavy for my current emotional bandwidth to handle. But I’m obsessed with the gothic romance vibed clips I’ve seen … and I say that as someone who never considered herself a monster romance girlie. If anyone can change my mind, it’s GdT, I suppose. (Crimson Peak still occupies a significant portion of my brain-space, rent free all these years later.) Who else would cast a 6’5 Australian hunk as a ‘monster’ and have him wear a mummy’s version of a Speedo for a good chunk of the movie? GdT knows what he’s doing … and, let’s be honest, we are all here for it. I am also sat for the costumes – his movies are always flawless when it comes to vibes + style, even if the pacing and plot are sometimes a bit wobbly. Personally, I just want to watch Elizabeth and the Creature hang out and bond over the beauty of nature and how much they both hate Victor. That’s it, that’s the movie. I hope there will be a director cut of this at some point.

Not coincidentally, my Instagram discovery page is now saturated with Jacob Elordi-adjacent content. Generally speaking, I’m not mad about it. In this trash fire year of our lord 2025, there are a lot of far, far, far worse things I could be doom-scrolling through. Did I mention he’s 6’5? Anyway. The worst thing that has come out of this is … God, I can’t believe I’m about to admit this … I’m now kinda intrigued by Emerald Fennel’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights. OK! Before you come at me with your literary pitchforks, listen: I made fun of it too when the first on-set photos came out. It looks utterly stupid as an actual literary adaptation and it’s completely historically anachronistic, and I don’t even like Wuthering Heights the book. [In fact, I loathe it. Now you can come at me with the pitchforks.]

But!

If you look at it as a thirst trap for people who enjoy quasi-historical cosplay and toxic smutty romances, I think it might be a really fun ride, no pun intended. Like, based on the trailer, this movie looks like it was made for people who like Frankenstein’s Creature but want to call him daddy. I hope the trailer and the advance buzz for this movie haven’t oversold how horny and depraved it is. I think it would be super interesting (ahem) to see that kind of story told from a female perspective, ya know?

Full disclosure: I have not seen Saltburn or anything else from either Fennell or her lead actors. [Yes, that means I haven’t seen Barbie either.]

Have a great weekend!

One of my favourite clothing purchases this year was an H&M cardigan. Yes, you read that correctly. It was secondhand, and I paid very nearly full retail price for it. Yes, you read that correctly too.

“But, Adina,” I can hear some of you go, “why?! And how, when your closet is full of amazing designer pieces?”

I’m going to hold your hand as I say this: not every piece in your closet needs to be amazing. It’s OK if some things are just good enough. Provided – and this is important – that they do one of two things (and preferably both): (1) they fill a functional need, and/or (2) they spark joy. That H&M cardigan? It’s good enough to do both, and I love that for me.

I am as guilty as the next gal of falling prey to the mindset that one’s closet is a work of constant progress, in which even basics need to be ‘elevated’ to their peak iteration. I’ve done a lot of ‘elevating’ in my years of clothes-buying, using thrifting to source the highest quality pieces I could reasonably get my hands on. And many of the items currently in my closet are pretty high quality indeed. Lately, though, I’ve been revisiting the whole idea and pondering how, in many ways, it boils down to a striving for perfection. To wanting to make the best and most optimal choices. This is not necessarily a bad thing (though some people have suggested that, on the whole, ‘maximizers’ tend to be less content than ‘satisficers’, but that’s another blog post). I am all about maximizing the value of my money; after all, finding the best quality stuff for the (relatively) lowest price possible is my raison d’etre as a thrifter. Just kidding. [But not really.]

On the other hand, value doesn’t only (or always) come from quality. Utility and joy also represent and give value, and they do so independently of quality. Let’s dig into that a bit further. In many cases, it’s probably fair to say that, for example, utility + quality = great value. Sometimes, though, the contribution made by quality to that equation is less significant than might appear at first. Sometimes, the bulk of an item’s value (to the individual person) derives from its utility, and the quality is just a cherry on top. And the same goes for joy + quality, too. In those cases, paying extra for quality – whether in terms of a cost premium or in time spent looking for the “perfect” item – isn’t really worth the sauce.

Let’s take the example of my H&M cardigan.

When I thrifted my first version, in black, at the beginning of the year, I didn’t think it was an especially exciting purchase. I bought it not because the quality was amazing – it’s OK, but more on that in a moment – but because it fit specific criteria that I had for the kind of cardigan that was missing from my closet at that time. It’s chunky and a little boxy but not too bulky. It’s cropped at the perfect length for me, which is important because I’m particular about proportions in my outfits; I had been struggling to find a cardigan that was the length I needed for my preferred aesthetic. It’s very plain and unfussy, which makes it a good “unobtrusive” piece to add to a variety of different outfits – aka a basic staple. And guess what? Over the course of the year, I found myself reaching for this cardigan constantly. Like, nearly every week … which, for someone with as big a closet as I have, is saying a lot.

And you know what else started happening? I found myself thinking, ‘gosh, it would be so handy to have this in cream or beige.’ Because sometimes I’d want the exact same style/functionality but in a different, lighter neutral to go with a particular outfit. I ended up finding a near-identical version (also H&M) in blush pink at the thrifts, which helped fill the whole to some extent. Still, though, I continued to “miss” a cream version in my closet.

Well, you know what happened next.

And as much as it pained me to pay $30 for a secondhand H&M cardigan, I did it and I have no regrets. I’ve already worn it a handful of times and I’m sure that will continue.

So, what about the quality?

We’ve talked about this before, but quality in fast fashion (which now describes the vast majority of the fashion industry, not just Shein, Zara, and H&M) is very hit and miss. Now and then, there are pieces that are better quality than the usual norm. Not amazing, but good enough. What do I mean by that? I mean good enough to do the job they need to do, for a good enough amount of time. My H&M cardigan is a cotton blend (mixed with acrylic) but has a handfeel that I like – it feels like decent cotton, isn’t scratchy, isn’t too thin, etc. I enjoy how it feels on my body when I wear it. It can be machine washed, which is great. I don’t throw mine in the dryer, which should extend its longevity. I see no reason why this cardigan won’t last me for years and years. It’s good enough.

Now, I could have spent more time (and probably more money) trying to find a “nicer” version of this cardigan – maybe one that’s 100% cotton and a better brand. But the value I would get from the increase in material quality would be relatively minimal in this situation. Construction-wise, given the nature of the garment, I’m not sure there is a ton of room for meaningful improvement in quality there either; certainly not enough to materially improve its wearability to me.

A last word on joy: while this cardigan doesn’t exactly spark joy in and of itself, the outfits I am able to make with it do. So, indirectly, I guess it does bring me joy to have it in my closet 🙂

Perfect.