Whether you’re into wishing folks “happy new year!” with exuberance, or taking it quiet and slow; whether you vision board quarterly aims, or prefer to see how things organically unfold; this newsletter here, short and simple, is about how we can do some of this. How we can do this time of year—with practices that help us feel whole, with pushback against needing to do / buy anything.

If you know me personally or professionally, you know that I take a lot on. Sometimes I’ve been put down for that, and certainly I’ve been judged for it. Sometimes I lose the plot and get lost in werkwerkwerk. But, as my amazing friend and Awakened Learning’s Academic Resilience Learning Strategist Meg Houghton says, there’s a spirit behind my work, behind what might look like ‘just’ busyness.

Instead of “getting through,” I much prefer: being present in the thing I’m doing, experiencing ease amid big events and projects, and feeling evenness and equilibrium, with time for joy and work and rest in most of my days, not just in fits and starts.

I’m going to keep it particularly short (to mind cognitive bandwidth) and sweet (keeping in line with this Halloween month). Given how demanding this new-school-year energy is for all involved, I want to share two strategies to help preserve that bandwidth and conserve that energy.

I admit, September is my least favourite time of year. I love the fall, don’t get me wrong. But, the big anticipatory anxiety, the discombobulation of routines, the ramping up of everything, well, it’s a lot. 

With age on my side, I know it’ll all become the new normal in a matter of a few short days and weeks. 

I also know, with years of doing this back-to-school September thing, two strategies that can make a difference.