“Swim with whale sharks!”

“Beat our walking record!”

“Go to the ocean as much as possible!”

This is just a snippet of this year’s No Bummer Summer list. Each June, I unroll butcher paper, grab colored markers, gather my husband and two sons, and start collecting No Bummer Summer ideas.

Our list usually contains over 50 entries, written in alternating rainbow markers, a sign of the color we hope to infuse in our goal to make summer more than just a season. The opposite of Katherine May’s term wintering, a seasonal giving in to all things slow, quiet and dark, summering is about openness, light, adventure. Summering is about living your best life.

Our only rule about the list is that it has to be aimed at fun, not productivity. We don’t include work goals. We don’t include anything that might read as productive. The goal for summer is to lessen the pressure to be anything more than we are.

The goal of summer is to have fun.

How have you lived today?

Grief therapist Francis Weller writes in his book, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, to wake each day and say, “I am one day closer to my death. So how will I live this day? I do not want to waste this day.”

When I ask these questions, and then think about how I spend the majority of my year being “productive” — toiling away at work emails, completing projects at home, repurposing life for more social media acceptance; going to meetings, and Zooming into other spaces — I realize that my productivity often feels like I’m not living.

Those glazed eyes staring at my computer screen are often considered so important that some days I don’t even go outside.

Obviously, working is necessary — how else will I afford summer? — and very few of us can ignore work. But when June arrives, I flip my priorities to honor adventure, fun, exploration, and enjoying the people I love as much as possible over obligations.

Summering might be the most refreshing gift we can offer ourselves, especially in times like these.

Making the most of summer

As a child, my parents worked a lot, so I had to entertain myself — picking flowers, playing with the dogs, swimming in the lake, catching fireflies.

Too much has already been written about young people’s (and adults’) nature deficit disorder. My kids (like many other young people) see freedom to explore as unlimited time on You Tube. And I’m no better: I’m sitting here typing on a computer on a gorgeous sunny day when I could be paddleboarding, running, swimming, or wandering through my neighborhood checking out birds. Though I relish my writing time (especially in summer when I don’t have teaching obligations), I often wish my default wasn’t to explore my device over my neighborhood.

So a few years ago, I decided to start a No Bummer Summer list. The first year, I populated the list with nature-based ideas — spend an hour a week riding bikes on your own, explore our street like a foreign country, grow something outside, climb trees. I also added ideas about indoor activities for hot days or when the air outside was too smoky to play: bake something, build something, learn to do something you always wanted to learn.

Then I asked my boys to add things they wanted to do for fun (play soccer, see friends, go to Six Flags). My husband and I added our own ideas there too (dance, take long walks, paddleboard). As a family we filled out the rest with adventures we hoped to take on our travels (near and far), places we wanted to eat, and activities that felt like summer — waterslides, bonfires, late night card games, lip synch battles, S’mores!

The list was not meant to force our hand to accomplish anything. Rather it hangs on the wall of our living room as a reminder, or gentle suggestion, of how to not waste a day of living.

We’ve made this list now for six years. Some items we don’t accomplish (being good surfers) and some we do more than once (eat tacos!). Some items appear each year (swim in warm water, see friends a lot). And some are evolutions of a previous year’s list (grow more food). Whatever the case, this list remains our guide for how we want to live better. It’s not an excuse to run ourselves ragged, rather it is a reminder of what the roller coaster of living feels like when we allow ourselves to truly live.

All of us have spent years wintering. It’s time to get out and remind yourself of what living feels like. Make your own list. Tape it on your wall. Populate it with things that bring you joy, things you imagine might bring you joy, new things you’ve never attempted. Don’t do it for social media. Do it for you. Maybe you want to skydive, or kayak in the ocean. Maybe you want to walk far distances. Roller skate. Maybe you want to learn how to make ceramics, or dance the tango. Do it. Write it down. Use your list to inspire summering not just in your actions but in your heart.

Michele Bigley is an award-winning writer with bylines in the New York Times, Afar, Outside, Hidden Compass, Los Angeles Times and many more. She is writing a book about how taking her sons to meet people stewarding fragile ecosystems taught them how to nurture their community. Subscribe to her monthly newsletter Our Feet on the Ground here. Or sign up on Medium to follow her adventures.