The October Scaries

When did October become the last month of the year?

TODAY: I'll be joining the weekly Women Wednesdays for Harris Zoom at 8:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. PT tonight. Hosted by Shannon Watts, other guests include Senator Cory Booker, Liza Colón-Zayas, Erica Ford, Kristin Neff, and Sharon Salzberg. We'll be talking about the importance of self-care to sustain our work through the election now that we have only 41 days to go. This event is free for all to join — RSVP now

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When those end-of-year feelings hit. Photo by Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash

The end of September is here, and it feels like the month just whooshed by me. I’ve noticed that as I get older (and maybe as life gets busier?), it increasingly feels like October is the new December — meaning that if you want to get anything substantive done within the calendar year, it better be done by the end of October (and maaaaybe the first week of November). Otherwise, good luck and godspeed. 

When did this happen? It wasn’t always like this, was it? 

Maybe it’s the fact that I have a kid and, like

Anne Helen Petersen

says, holiday sprawl creeps ever earlier year after year (pumpkin-spice lattes showed up in freaking August this summer). 

Or maybe it’s because, now that I’m in my forties, time just feels like it moves faster. 

It’s probably some combination of all of the things. 

If you’ve been here for a while, you know that I’ve been embracing SLOW (first the Fall of Slow, then the Year of Slow) with varying degrees of success. As I was writing this letter, I thought to myself, ugh, I must have fallen off the wagon again, because life right now feels anything but slow. 

But then I remembered something that my book publicist, the ever wise Lauren Cerand, mentioned in December 2022 when I was four months out from my first book hitting the market. Lauren said some version of: “Pooja, publishing is a seasonal industry. Work hard September until Thanksgiving, and then take the holidays off. Do not try and get anything done in December. Turn back on from January to May, and then take it easy again over the summer. You’ll feel much less stressed, and you’ll be working WITH the tide as opposed to against it.” 

I took her advice, said no to all media and interviews and most speaking engagements from Thanksgiving onwards. In December, I cleaned and organized my (very messy) office (shoutout to my sister Deepa, who jump started that monumental task) instead of sending pitches to magazine editors who were already in rest mode and could care less about their inboxes. I was able to start 2024 with a fresh desk and a sense of order.

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Instead of thinking of the second half of the year as a deadline you’re charging towards, think about your year more cyclically.

How to Implement More Seasonality into your Life

1. Get a bird’s eye view of the year.

   Take time each year, quarter, and even month to think about the seasons ahead. What months are always busy (think: end of fiscal year, big dance team competitions, the holidays)? When are you often traveling? What pockets of the year can feel harder emotionally? (It can be helpful to give yourself more space during anniversaries of grief.) Make sure not to schedule any big commitments during those months — your mental health will thank you later. Go ahead and actually write these high- and low-energy times into your calendar to help remind yourself, and do your best to guard them.

2. Pay attention to the cadence. 

   Lay out your calendar from January to December and look to see if there is an ebb and flow of busy and light months. You can have two or even three busy, high-energy months in a row, but it’s not realistic to push through six packed months straight — if that’s what your calendar looks like, something’s gotta give. The goal is to have lighter, calmer months interspersed with the busier ones as a balanced cadence. For some folks, that flow will naturally fall into the seasonal calendar of a busy February-May, a lighter June-August during summer vacation, a heavy September-November, and a quieter December-January. But that cadence might not work for you. Think about your life and the best fit for you and your loved ones.

3. Intentionally mark the changing seasons.

   Build in rituals to remind yourself that you are in a new season or cycle, particularly when you’re welcoming the lighter months. This needs to be more than a bag of candy corn.

   There was an intriguing study conducted by researchers at the UCLA school of management who wanted to get a better understanding of how we think about work, vacation, and time scarcity. The researchers took a sample of working adults and randomly assigned some of them to go into their weekend as if they were on vacation. They also had a control group who were told to treat the weekend like any other. The researchers found that, come Monday morning, the “vacation weekend” group was, on average, happier than the regular weekend group. But, interestingly, the "vacation weekend" people did not actually do "vacation" activities over the weekend — they were still living their normal lives, taking the kids to activities, cooking meals, etc. What was different is that they lingered more on things — spent more time eating meals, allowed themselves to sleep in and hang out. 

   So, if you have the means and the flexibility to take a full on vacation, please do! But, if not, think of some rituals that you can incorporate into regular life that mark light seasons. Maybe summer dinners happen on the back patio, or Saturdays during the holiday season are spent driving to a new neighborhood to look at all the Christmas lights. It should be something that allows you to linger and savor. 

I will be the last to proclaim mastery around rest or leisure (I’m sure my partner, Justin, is reading today’s newsletter right now and getting ready to call me out), but I am trying. For some of us, it’s actually HARDER for us to slow down, ask for an extension, miss a call, etc., than it is to push through and grind. 

What do you to mark the changing seasons? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. 

xo, 
Pooja