I expressed my thoughts about the great September skip in an earlier post — the pumpkins in August, the skeletons before the tomatoes are done — and I gave you twenty simple joys to help you notice the month you’re actually in.
This is a different list. Those were things to enjoy. These are small ways to change the pace — because September doesn’t go by fast. We go by fast. The month is exactly as long as August was (well, minus one day). It just gets filled up quicker: the calendar restarts, the routines come back, and by the time we look up it’s October and we don’t remember the golden part.
So here are ten ways to slow down this September. Some take twenty minutes. A couple take an afternoon. None of them are complicated, and every one of them gives back more than it takes — a quieter morning, a longer evening, a meal you actually tasted. You don’t need all ten. Pick two or three that sound like you and let the rest go. That’s plenty.
1. Honor the first hour of the morning
The fastest way to lose a slow day is to start it with everyone else’s noise. Leave the phone in another room until you’ve had your coffee and looked out a window. If your mornings are full and there’s little time to spare, set the alarm earlier. If an hour isn’t realistic, take what you can, but make it at least twenty minutes. Find a quiet spot to sit with yourself and a coffee, tea, or whatever you enjoy in the morning. September mornings are the best of the year — cool, gold, quiet. Don’t waste this precious time scrolling on your phone. Savor it.
2. Eat one meal a week outside
Breakfast, lunch, or dinner — it doesn’t matter which. Not a picnic. Not an event. Just carry your plate to the porch or the back step or the folding chair by the garden. Morning coffee and toast in the cool air, a sandwich in the noon sun, supper while the light goes gold. Food eaten outdoors takes longer, and that’s the whole point. Do it now, while the weather still allows it.
3. Take the long way
To the mailbox, to the market, on the dog walk. Add five minutes to a route you take anyway, or trade one evening of television for a walk after dinner. Give yourself a few extra minutes to see the season beginning to change — the first tree with a blush of color, the neighbor’s tomatoes finally giving up, the light coming in lower than it did a month ago. You can’t notice any of it from the couch.
4. Cook something that can’t be hurried
A pot of soup made from scratch. Cinnamon rolls that have to rise. An apple crisp that fills the house while it bakes. Slow food makes a slow house — you can’t rush it, so you stop trying, and everything else in the kitchen slows down with it. If you need a place to start, here are mine: chicken tortilla soup, cinnamon rolls, and apple crisp.
5. Read ten pages before bed instead of scrolling
Ten pages. That’s it. A novel by the bed instead of a phone on the nightstand ends the day in a different place than it started — and over a month, ten pages a night is a whole book you didn’t think you had time for. (If you need one, I have a few suggestions that feel like coming home.)
6. Take yourself on an artist date
Julia Cameron calls it an artist date — a few hours, once a week, spent alone somewhere that fills you back up. It doesn’t have to be artistic. Mine are usually a walk somewhere green, an hour wandering a bookstore, or a little shop I’ve been meaning to poke around in. Pick one morning, afternoon, or evening this week, put it on the calendar so nothing else lands there, and don’t decide what it’s for until it arrives. Then go wherever the day suggests. A few unplanned hours are the most underrated luxury there is.
7. Buy something at the farmers market that will make you stop
A bunch of flowers you have to trim and arrange. Peaches that need eating today. A basket of apples that will become a crisp whether you planned one or not. Seasonal food comes with its own small assignment, and the assignment is a kind of slowing down. Here’s my go to apple crisp from above.
8. Write it down by hand
A grocery list, three lines in a notebook, a card to a friend. Handwriting is slower than typing, and that’s exactly why it works. I write my novels in a program, but I plan my weeks and jot my lists on paper. There’s just something more intentional about handwriting. When was the last time you received a handwritten note? Take some time to get reacquainted with pen and paper. You’ll notice the difference in how the day feels.
9. Open the windows and let the house be quiet
No music, no television, no podcast for a little while. September air through an open window has its own sound — crickets, a lawn mower somewhere, kids playing. A house that’s quiet feels like it’s breathing slower.
10. End the day on purpose
Light a candle after super or while cooking. Sit on the porch for the last ten minutes of light. Step outside and look at the sky before you lock the door. Think of the children’s book Goodnight Moon and create your own nightly ritual filled with intention. The days are getting shorter, and you can either let them slip away or you can watch them go.
None of this is about doing less for the sake of it. It’s about being here for the month while it’s here. Fall will come whether we rush toward it or not; the pumpkins will keep, and so will October. September won’t.
Take the list with you
If you’d like a gentler kind of bucket list to go with these, my September Simple Joys List is a free printable — twenty small invitations to notice the month, pretty enough for the refrigerator. Get the September Simple Joys List → A new list comes out every month, along with my letter on what I’ve been reading, writing, and cooking.